Patent Application
20080033794
Embodiments in accordance with the present disclosure provide a method and apparatus for presenting advertisements.
In a first embodiment of the present disclosure, a computer-readable storage medium can have computer instructions for monitoring packet traffic associated with an end user, determining a behavioral profile of the end user from the monitored packet traffic, and submitting to an advertisement element the behavioral profile.
In a second embodiment of the present disclosure, a computer-readable storage medium can have computer instructions for receiving an advertisement request from a publisher element in response to an end user visiting a website operated by the publisher element, receiving from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) a behavioral profile of the end user, selecting one or more advertisements according to the behavioral profile of the end user, and submitting the one or more advertisements to the web server.
In a third embodiment of the present disclosure, a computer-readable storage medium can have computer instructions for detecting an end user visit to a website, submitting an advertisement request associated with the website to an advertisement element, and receiving from the advertisement element one or more advertisements selected according to a behavioral profile of the end user supplied by an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
In a fourth embodiment of the present disclosure, a system can have an inspection element that monitors packet traffic associated with an end user, and determines a behavioral profile of the end user from the monitored packet traffic, a publisher element that detects an end user visiting a website managed thereby, and generates an advertisement request associated with the website, and an advertisement element that selects one or more advertisements according to the behavioral profile of the end user, and submits said one or more advertisements to the publisher element for presentation thereof to the end user.
In a fifth embodiment of the present disclosure, a method can have the step of submitting a payment in response to receiving a billing request for one or more advertisements presented by a publisher according to a behavioral profile associated with an end user supplied by an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
For wireless communications, a WAP can represent a plurality of wireless base stations 114 operating according to a frequency reuse architecture that provides over-the-air coverage to a large geographic region of roaming messaging devices 116.
Some of the messaging devices 116 can operate as multimode devices
Accordingly, said roaming devices can utilize POTS or VoIP services when in the building 115, or cellular services outside the building 115. A cellular network 109 can utilize circuit-switched technology for voice and data services such as GSM-GPRS, EDGE, CDMA-1X, EV/DO, UMTS, and other known and next generation cellular communications technologies.
Alternatively, or in combination, other wireless access technologies can be applied to the present disclosure such as Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), ultra wide band (UWB), Bluetooth™, and software defined radio (SDR). SDR provides a means to access public and private communication spectrum with any number of communication protocols that can be dynamically downloaded over-the-air to the messaging devices 116. Other present and future generation wireless access technologies can also be applied to the present disclosure.
The communication system 100 can further comprise an inspection element 103, a publisher element 105, and an advertisement element 107. The inspection element 103 can represent hardware and/or software managed by for example an ISP that monitors packet traffic associated with messaging devices 116 of an end user. The publisher element 105 can represent a web server operated by a publisher that publishes content and advertisements by way of a website accessible to Internet users. The advertisement element 107 can represent hardware and/or software operated by an ad broker for supplying to the publisher element 105 advertisements which can be selected according to behavioral and/or content profiles derived from the inspection and publisher elements 103, 105 as will be described shortly. Once advertisements have been selected and forwarded to the publisher element 105, the publisher element 105 presents a web page to end users with the publisher's content and targeted advertisements. Advertisements can represent objects presented singly or combination as audible, still or moving images. It would be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art that the inspection, publisher, and advertisement elements 103, 105, 107 can operate singly or in any combination such as system 102.
In a supplemental embodiment, the inspection element 103 can receive in step 204 from the advertisement element 107, search criteria that can be applied to a number of websites. The search criteria can include a number of search terms (e.g., for cars, boats, clothing, accessories, computers, electronics, office supplies, home supplies, travel, etc.) which can be accompanied with search guidelines (e.g., if the end user visits a website related to cars, inspect the following keywords in the user's packets). Thus steps 202-204 can be combined as another means to perform market analysis on packet traffic and thereby generate a behavioral profile in step 206 for each end user of the ISP.
In step 208 the publisher element 105 can register one or more websites managed thereby with the advertisement element 107. In this step, the advertisement element 105 can be programmed to determine a publisher profile for each website by inspecting the content published thereby and determining from said content marketing patterns that identify ads having a high likelihood of targeting end user interests associated with said content. Thus with a publisher profile, and behavioral profiles for targeted end users, the advertisement element 105 can target subscribers of the ISP more precisely than prior art systems. In an alternative embodiment, steps 206 and 208 can be reversed in order. That is, the order of determining a publisher profile and a behavioral profile has no effect on the present disclosure. In yet another alternative embodiment, the inspection element 103 can proceed from step 206 to step 212 bypassing the need for determining a publisher profile. In this embodiment, the behavioral profile of each end user would be utilized alone to target ISP subscribers.
With the behavioral profile and publisher profile (if available), the publisher element 105 can be programmed in step 212 to check for end user visits to a website managed thereby. When an end user visit is detected, the publisher element 105 proceeds to step 214 where it submits an advertisement request to the advertisement element 107. The advertisement request can include a number of operational parameters such as an identity of the end user visiting the website (e.g., an IP address associated therewith), a script (e.g., a Java script), and/or physical and software constraints for presenting advertisements at a designated location in a web page of the website visited by the end user. The advertisement element 107 in step 216 requests from the inspection element 103 the behavioral profile of the end user visiting the website.
Once it is received, the advertisement element proceeds to step 218 where it selects one or more advertisements according to the behavioral profile (and the publisher profile if available). In step 220, the publisher element 105 receives and presents the one or more advertisements to the end user. The presentation of advertisements can be audio only, visual only, still or moving images, or combinations thereof. Once the advertisements are presented, the publisher element 105 can be programmed to track end user selections (“clicks”) of said advertisements. If no clicks are detected, the publisher element 105 can be programmed not to submit fees for advertisements.
If on the other hand one or more advertisement selections are detected, the publishing element 105 proceeds to step 224 where it submits fee per click to the advertisement element 107, which relays said fee to a corresponding advertiser (a pay per click business model). Alternatively, step 224 can be modified so that click fees are accumulated over periodic payment intervals (e.g., month-to-month) and submitted to the advertisement element 107 and thereafter to the advertiser over said intervals. Upon receiving a payment from the advertiser, the advertisement element 107 in step 226 keeps a portion of the payment for fulfilling its brokerage services and submits the remainder to the publisher element 105. In an alternative embodiment, the publisher element 105 can be programmed to proceed from step 220 to step 225 where it submits an impression fee to the advertisement element which relays said fee to the advertiser (a pay per impression business model). Upon receiving payment, the advertisement element 107 performs revenue sharing as described in step 226.
It would be evident to an artisan with ordinary skill in the art that the aforementioned embodiments can be modified, reduced, or enhanced without departing from the scope and spirit of the claims described below. For example, method 200 can be applied in the context of an end user visiting a website from a cell phone or personal digital assistant rather than a computer. The advertisement model described above can be applied as a push rather than a pull business model. For instance, the advertisement element 107 can proactively submit an advertisement to the end user's messaging device 116 prior to the end user visiting a website based on its analysis of the behavioral profile supplied by the inspection element. Moreover, the order and timing of steps 202-225 can be modified without substantially changing the essence of the present disclosure
These are but a few examples of other embodiments that can be read into the claims. Accordingly, the reader is directed to the claims below for a fuller understanding of the breadth and scope of the present disclosure.
The machine may comprise a server computer, a client user computer, a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a control system, a network router, switch or bridge, or any machine capable of executing a set of instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine. It will be understood that a device of the present disclosure includes broadly any electronic device that provides voice, video or data communication. Further, while a single machine is illustrated, the term “machine” shall also be taken to include any collection of machines that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.
The computer system 400 may include a processor 402 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU, or both), a main memory 404 and a static memory 406, which communicate with each other via a bus 408. The computer system 400 may further include a video display unit 410 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD), a flat panel, a solid state display, or a cathode ray tube (CRT)). The computer system 400 may include an input device 412 (e.g., a keyboard), a cursor control device 414 (e.g., a mouse), a disk drive unit 416, a signal generation device 418 (e.g., a speaker or remote control) and a network interface device 420.
The disk drive unit 416 may include a machine-readable medium 422 on which is stored one or more sets of instructions (e.g., software 424) embodying any one or more of the methodologies or functions described herein, including those methods illustrated above. The instructions 424 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 404, the static memory 406, and/or within the processor 402 during execution thereof by the computer system 400. The main memory 404 and the processor 402 also may constitute machine-readable media.
Dedicated hardware implementations including, but not limited to, application specific integrated circuits, programmable logic arrays and other hardware devices can likewise be constructed to implement the methods described herein. Applications that may include the apparatus and systems of various embodiments broadly include a variety of electronic and computer systems. Some embodiments implement functions in two or more specific interconnected hardware modules or devices with related control and data signals communicated between and through the modules, or as portions of an application-specific integrated circuit. Thus, the example system is applicable to software, firmware, and hardware implementations.
In accordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure, the methods described herein are intended for operation as software programs running on a computer processor. Furthermore, software implementations can include, but not limited to, distributed processing or component/object distributed processing, parallel processing, or virtual machine processing can also be constructed to implement the methods described herein.
The present disclosure contemplates a machine readable medium containing instructions 424, or that which receives and executes instructions 424 from a propagated signal so that a device connected to a network environment 426 can send or receive voice, video or data, and to communicate over the network 426 using the instructions 424. The instructions 424 may further be transmitted or received over a network 426 via the network interface device 420.
While the machine-readable medium 422 is shown in an example embodiment to be a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more sets of instructions. The term “machine-readable medium” shall also be taken to include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying a set of instructions for execution by the machine and that cause the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies of the present disclosure.
The term “machine-readable medium” shall accordingly be taken to include, but not be limited to: solid-state memories such as a memory card or other package that houses one or more read-only (non-volatile) memories, random access memories, or other re-writable (volatile) memories; magneto-optical or optical medium such as a disk or tape; and carrier wave signals such as a signal embodying computer instructions in a transmission medium; and/or a digital file attachment to e-mail or other self-contained information archive or set of archives is considered a distribution medium equivalent to a tangible storage medium. Accordingly, the disclosure is considered to include any one or more of a machine-readable medium or a distribution medium, as listed herein and including art-recognized equivalents and successor media, in which the software implementations herein are stored.
Although the present specification describes components and functions implemented in the embodiments with reference to particular standards and protocols, the disclosure is not limited to such standards and protocols. Each of the standards for Internet and other packet switched network transmission (e.g., TCP/IP, UDP/IP, HTML, HTTP) represent examples of the state of the art. Such standards are periodically superseded by faster or more efficient equivalents having essentially the same functions. Accordingly, replacement standards and protocols having the same functions are considered equivalents.
The illustrations of embodiments described herein are intended to provide a general understanding of the structure of various embodiments, and they are not intended to serve as a complete description of all the elements and features of apparatus and systems that might make use of the structures described herein. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. Other embodiments may be utilized and derived therefrom, such that structural and logical substitutions and changes may be made without departing from the scope of this disclosure. Figures are also merely representational and may not be drawn to scale. Certain proportions thereof may be exaggerated, while others may be minimized. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.
Such embodiments of the inventive subject matter may be referred to herein, individually and/or collectively, by the term “invention” merely for convenience and without intending to voluntarily limit the scope of this application to any single invention or inventive concept if more than one is in fact disclosed. Thus, although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it should be appreciated that any arrangement calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments shown. This disclosure is intended to cover any and all adaptations or variations of various embodiments. Combinations of the above embodiments, and other embodiments not specifically described herein, will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description.
The Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to comply with 37 C.F.R. § 1.72(b), requiring an abstract that will allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separately claimed subject matter.
