Patent Application
20110295683
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for presenting media programs, and in particular to a system and method and apparatus for rapidly selecting advertisements to be presented in conjunction with such media programs.
2. Description of the Related Art
The dissemination and playback of media programs has undergone substantial changes in the past decade. Previously, media programs (which may include audio, video, or both) were disseminated either by analog broadcast (conventional, satellite, or cable) or by physical dissemination of films to movie theaters.
These traditional dissemination and playback means remain in use after the advent of digital technology. However, digital technologies have had a profound effect on the dissemination and playback of media programs.
First, digital technology permitted the use of digital video recorders (DVRs). DVRs, while similar in function to standard analog video cassette recorders (VCRs), provide a number of additional useful functions including live pause, the ability to record one program while playing back another, and the integration of the electronic program guides with DVR functionality (so that the recordation of media programs could be scheduled far in advance and more easily).
Second, largely due to improved signal processing and more and widespread high-speed Internet access availability (e.g. DSL, fiber, and/or satellite), digital technology also permitted the dissemination and playback of media programs via the Internet. Dissemination of media programs via the Internet may occur either by simple downloading, progressive downloading or streaming.
With progressive downloading, a media file having the media program is downloaded via the Internet using dial-up, DSL, ADSL, cable, T1, or other high-speed connection, typically by a web server via the Internet.
Unlike simple downloading, in which bytes of the media file may be downloaded in any convenient order, progressive downloading downloads bytes from the beginning of a file and continues downloading the file sequentially and consecutively until the last byte. In some progressive downloading implementations, the entire file must be downloaded first before a media player can start playback. However, progressive downloading may permit media players to start playback once enough of the beginning of the file has been downloaded. Playback of progressively downloaded media files is often delayed by slow Internet connections and is also often choppy and/or contains a high likelihood of stopping after only a few seconds. Once a progressively downloaded media program has been completely downloaded, it may be stored on the end-user computer for later use.
One of the disadvantages of a progressive downloading is that the entity transmitting the data (the web server) simply pushes the data to the client as fast as possible. It may appear to be “streaming” the video because the progressive download capability of many media players allows playback as soon as an adequate amount of data has been downloaded. However, the user cannot fast-forward to the end of the file until the entire file has been delivered by the web server. Another disadvantage with progressive downloading is that the web server does not make allowances for the data rate of the video file. Hence if the network bandwidth is lower than the data rate required by the video file, the user would have to wait a period of time before playback can begin. If playback speed exceeds the data transfer speed, playback may be paused for a period of time while additional data is downloaded, interrupting the viewing experience. However, the video playback quality may be higher when the playback occurs because of the potentially higher data rate. For example, if a 100 kbps video file can be delivered over a 56 kbps modem, the video will be presented at the 100 kbps rate, but there may be periods when playback will be paused while additional video data is downloaded. The video data is typically downloaded and stored as a temporary file in its entirety.
Web servers typically use HTTP (hypertext transport protocol) on top of TCP (transfer control protocol) to transfer files over the network. TCP, which controls the transport of data packets over the network, is optimized for guaranteed delivery of data, not speed. Therefore, if a browser senses that data is missing, a resend request will be issued and the data will be resent. In networks with high delivery errors, resend requests may consume a large amount of bandwidth. Since TCP is not designed for efficient delivery of adequate data or bandwidth control (but rather guaranteed delivery of all data), it is not preferred for the delivery of video data in all applications.
Streaming delivers media content continuously to a media player and media playback occurs simultaneously. The end-user is capable of playing the media immediately upon delivery by the content provider. Traditional streaming techniques originate from a single provider delivering a stream of data to a set of end-users. High bandwidths and central processing unit (CPU) power are required to deliver a single stream to a large audience, and the required bandwidth of the provider increases as the number of end-users increases.
Unlike progressive downloading, streaming media can be delivered on-demand or live. Wherein progressive download requires downloading the entire file or downloading enough of the entire file to start playback at the beginning, streaming enables immediate playback at any point within the file. End-users may skip through the media file to start playback or change playback to any point in the media file. Hence, the end-user does not need to wait for the file to progressively download. Typically, streaming media is delivered from a few dedicated servers having high bandwidth capabilities.
A streaming media server is a specialized device that accepts requests for video files, and with information about the format, bandwidth and structure of those files, delivers just the amount of data necessary to play the video, at the rate needed to play it. Streaming media servers may also account for the transmission bandwidth and capabilities of the media player. Unlike the web server, the streaming media server communicates with the user computer using control messages and data messages to adjust to changing network conditions as the video is played. These control messages can include commands for trick play functions such as fast forward, fast reverse, pausing, or seeking to a particular part of the file. Since a streaming media server transmits video data only as needed and at the rate that is needed, precise control over the number of streams served can be maintained. Unlike the case with progressive downloading, the viewer will not be able to view high data rate videos over a lower data rate transmission medium. However, streaming media servers (1) provide users random access to the video file, (2) allows monitoring of who is viewing what video programs and how long they are watched (3) use transmission bandwidth more efficiently, since only the amount of data required to support the viewing experience is transmitted, and (4) the video file is not stored in the viewer's computer, but discarded by the media player, thus allowing more control over the content.
Streaming media servers may use HTTP and TCP to deliver video streams, but generally use RSTP (real time streaming protocol) and UDP (user datagram protocol). These protocols permit control messages and save bandwidth by reducing overhead. Unlike TCP, when data is dropped during transmission, UDP does not transmit resent requests. Instead, the server continues to send data. Streaming media servers can also deliver live webcasts and can multicast, which allows more than one client to tune into a single stream, thus saving bandwidth.
Typically, progressively downloaded media is transmitted to the user computer at a rate that is faster than playback. The media program player buffers this data, and may indicate how much of the media program has been buffered by providing an indicator, usually as a part of a “progress bar.” A control is often provided that allows the user to go to any point in the program that has already been buffered by selecting the control and moving it to a different location along the progress bar. This allows the user to randomly access any buffered portion of the media program.
Streaming media players do not rely on buffering to provide random access to any point in the media program. Instead, this is accomplished through the use of control messages transmitted from the media player to the streaming media server.
The delivery of media programs can be accomplished under a variety of models. In one model, the user pays for the viewing of the media program (for example, using a pay-per-view service). In another model widely adopted by broadcast television shortly after it's inception, sponsors pay for the presentation of the media program in exchange for the right to present advertisements during or adjacent to the presentation of the program.
The advent of DVRs has had a profound effect upon the advertising model described above. DVRs permit the user to record media programs (in advance or during their broadcast), and permit the user to easily bypass advertisements presented during the media program by use of trick-play functions such as fast forward and reverse.
However, DVRs are not capable of these operations with media programs provided as streaming media. In such cases, the user must view the advertisements. The fact that users cannot skip advertisements within streamed media using a DVR-like device is both a strength and a weakness of this media program delivery paradigm. It is a strength, because advertisers can be assured that the viewers are actually watching the advertisements placed within the media program and not skipping them. However, it also represents a barrier to the widespread viewing of media programs via streaming media because users prefer to skip advertisements that are not of interest.
It is known that advertisements can be generally directed to users based on information gleaned from the user's clickstream through a website or from demographic information provided by the user. Such “directed advertisements” are typically much more effective, since they are directed at items that are more likely to be of interest to the user.
However, providing directed advertisements in a streaming media context is a challenging proposition, because it involves finding an optimal (or at least near optimal) match between a large and rapidly varying number of users with a large and rapidly varying number of advertisements, based upon a large number of rules, and doing so in a potentially very short period of time.
What is needed is an method and apparatus for rapidly selecting an appropriate advertisement to display to a user based on a match between user information and targeting rules that define which advertisements should be shown to which users. What is also needed is a method and apparatus for making such selections that is easily and rapidly scaleable so that it may handle large and rapidly varying numbers of users and advertisements. The present invention satisfies that need.
To address the requirements described above, the present invention discloses a method and apparatus for selecting a subset of advertisements complying with an advertisement request from a set of advertisements. In one embodiment, the method comprises the steps of accepting an advertisement rule for each advertisement of the set of advertisements, wherein each advertisement rule describes circumstances in which the associated advertisement belong to the subset of advertisements, and each advertisement rule comprises one or more advertisement rule primitives including a advertisement rule key and a advertisement rule value associated with the advertisement rule key; precomputing a first map relating each advertisement its advertisement rule; accepting an advertisement request having one or more advertisement request keys, each of the advertisement request keys having one or more advertisement request values; retrieving, in response to the advertisement request, at least a portion of the precomputed map, the at least a portion describing the advertisement rules for which advertisement rule values match the advertisement request values; computing a second map from the portion of the precomputed map; and selecting the subset of advertisements from the second map as only those advertisements having advertisement rules satisfied by all of the advertisement request values.
In another embodiment, the present invention is evidenced by an advertisement server for selecting a subset of advertisements complying with an advertisement request from a set of advertisements. The advertisement server comprises a metadata cache service, the metadata cache service that accepts an advertisement rule for each advertisement of the set of advertisements and precomputes a first map relating each advertisement its advertisement rule. Each advertisement rule describes circumstances in which the associated advertisement belong to the subset of advertisements and each advertisement rule comprises one or more advertisement rule primitives having a advertisement rule key and a advertisement rule value associated with the advertisement rule key. The advertisement server further comprises an advertisement selection service communicatively coupled to the metadata cache service, for accepting an advertisement request having one or more advertisement request keys, each of the advertisement request keys having one or more advertisement request values, for retrieving, in response to the advertisement request, at least a portion of the precomputed map, the at least a portion describing the advertisement rules for which advertisement rule values match the advertisement request values, for computing a second map from the portion of the precomputed map, and for selecting the subset of advertisements from the second map as only those advertisements having advertisement rules satisfied by all of the advertisement request values.
Referring now to the drawings in which like reference numbers represent corresponding parts throughout:
In the following description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and which is shown, by way of illustration, several embodiments of the present invention. It is understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
The media program system 100 may stream media programs to the user's computer 102 directly from the media program provider 110, or the media program provider 110 may operate as a portal, providing an interface to the media programs available from the media program sources 120A and 120B, but not the media program itself (which is instead provided by the media program source(s) 120).
In the first case, the media program provider 110 licenses media programs from the media program sources 120 (such as www.fox.com or www.nbc.com), and metadata for such programs is also typically provided to the media program provider 110 from the media program source 120 as well. Such metadata can be retrieved by the media program provider's database 114 for use. If supplementary metadata is required, it can be obtained from a metadata source 130 independent from the media program provider 110 and the media program source 120, as described further below.
In the second case, the media programs are streamed to the user's computer 102 directly from the servers of the media program source 120. When the media program is streamed directly from the media program source 120, it is often the case that the metadata provided by the media program source 120 is insufficient. In such cases, supplementary metadata may be obtained from independent metadata source 130 (such as www.tv.com or www.imdb.com) or other third party sources. In this circumstance, the role of the media program provider 110 is that of a portal that provides the user 132 a list of available media programs and an interface to search to find such programs and to view them.
Media programs and metadata may be obtained via a communication network 104 such as the Internet, or through auxiliary (and/or dedicated) communication links 134). Such information may be obtained by webcrawling (for example, using a program or automated script that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner).
Using the computer 102, remote users 132 can communicate with the media program provider 110 using the communication network 104, to obtain media programs (including video-on-demand and/or streaming video services) and to search the provider media program database 114 to find media programs of interest.
The media program system 100 may also comprise one or more advertisement providers 140, which supply advertisements that are replayed in connection with the media programs provided by the media program provider 110 or media program sources 120. In the illustrated embodiment, the advertisement provider 140 includes an advertisement provider server 142 communicatively coupled to an associated and communicatively coupled advertisement provider database 144.
Advertisements may be supplied from the advertisement provider 140 to the media program provider 110 via the Internet 104, a dedicated link 146, or by physical exchange of a memory storage device having the advertisement. Such advertisements can be provided to and stored by the media program provider 110 and streamed or downloaded along with the media program to the user computer 102 at the appropriate time.
In one embodiment, the advertisements are integrated with the streamed or downloaded video from the media program provider 110. In another embodiment, the advertisements are not integrated with the media program, but are instead transmitted to the user computer 102 separately from the media program, and replayed at the appropriate time using indices that indicate when each advertisement should be presented. For example, advertisements can be indexed and streamed or downloaded to the user computer 102 (from the media program provider 110 or the advertisement provider 140), and such advertisements can be played back to the user 132 at times indicated by corresponding indices in the media program.
In one embodiment, the computer 202 operates by the general purpose processor 204A performing instructions defined by the computer program 210 under control of an operating system 208. The computer program 210 and/or the operating system 208 may be stored in the memory 206 and may interface with the user 132 and/or other devices to accept input and commands and, based on such input and commands and the instructions defined by the computer program 210 and operating system 208 to provide output and results.
Output/results may be presented on display 222 or provided to another device for presentation or further processing or action. Typically, the display 222 comprises a plurality of picture elements (pixels) that change state to collectively present an image to the user 132. For example, the display 222 may comprise a liquid crystal display (LCD) having a plurality of separately addressable pixels, each with a liquid crystal that changes to an opaque or translucent state to form a part of the image on the display in response to the data or information generated by the processor 204 from the application of the instructions of the computer program 210 and/or operating system 208 to the input and commands. Similarly, plasma displays include a pixel having three separate subpixel cells, each with a different color phosphor. The colors blend together to create the color presented in the pixel. Pulses of current flowing through the cells are varied according to the data generated by the processor from the application of the instructions of the computer program and/or operating system 208 in response to input and commands, changing the intensity of the light provided by the pixel. Also, similarly, cathode ray tube (CRT) displays include a plurality of pixels, each with each pixel having subpixels typically represented by dots or lines from an aperture grille. Each dot or line includes a phosphor coating that glows when struck by electrons from an electron gun. In response to the data generated by the processor from the application of instructions of the computer program and/or operating system 208 and in response to input and commands, the electrons emitted by the electron gun are steered at the dots or lines, thus changing the state of the associated pixel by causing the phosphor coating of that dot or line to glow.
The image may be provided through a graphical user interface (GUI) module 218A. Although the GUI module 218A is depicted as a separate module, the instructions performing the GUI functions can be resident or distributed in the operating system 208, the computer program 210, or implemented with special purpose memory and processors.
Some or all of the operations performed by the computer 202 according to the computer program 110 instructions may be implemented in a special purpose processor 204B. In this embodiment, some or all of the computer program 210 instructions may be implemented via firmware instructions stored in a read only memory (ROM), a programmable read only memory (PROM) or flash memory in within the special purpose processor 204B or in memory 206. The special purpose processor 204B may also be hardwired through circuit design to perform some or all of the operations to implement the present invention. Further, the special purpose processor 204B may be a hybrid processor, which includes dedicated circuitry for performing a subset of functions, and other circuits for performing more general functions such as responding to computer program instructions. In one embodiment, the special purpose processor is an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC).
The computer 202 may also implement a compiler 212 which allows an application program 210 written in a programming language such as COBOL, C++, FORTRAN, or other language to be translated into processor 204 readable code. After completion, the application or computer program 210 accesses and manipulates data accepted from I/O devices and stored in the memory 206 of the computer 202 using the relationships and logic that was generated using the compiler 212.
The computer 202 also optionally comprises an external communication device such as a modem, satellite link, Ethernet card, or other device for accepting input from and providing output to other computers.
In one embodiment, instructions implementing the operating system 208, the computer program 210, and the compiler 212 are tangibly embodied in a computer-readable medium, e.g., data storage device 220, which could include one or more fixed or removable data storage devices, such as a zip drive, floppy disc drive 224, hard drive, CD-ROM drive, tape drive, DVD, etc. Further, the operating system 208 and the computer program 210 are comprised of computer program instructions which, when accessed, read and executed by the computer 202, causes the computer 202 to perform the steps necessary to implement and/or use the present invention or to load the program of instructions into a memory, thus creating a special purpose data structure causing the computer to operate as a specially programmed computer executing the method steps described herein. Computer program 210 and/or operating instructions may also be tangibly embodied in memory 206 and/or data communications devices 230, thereby making a computer program product or article of manufacture according to the invention. As such, the terms “article of manufacture,” “program storage device” and “computer program product” as used herein are intended to encompass a computer program accessible from any computer readable device or media.
Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize that any combination of the above components, or any number of different components, peripherals, and other devices, may be used with the computer 202.
Although the term “user computer” is referred to herein, it is understood that a user computer 102 may include portable devices such as cellphones, portable MP3 players, video game consoles, notebook computers, pocket computers, personal data assistants (PDAs) or any other device with suitable processing, communication, and input/output capability.
The user computer 102 includes an interface module 302 and a media program player 304. The interface module 302 includes instructions performed by the user computer 102 that are used to present information to the user 132 and to accept user input, including commands. The presented information may include a program guide, advertisement options (as discussed further below), and the user input may include selected advertisement options and media program playback selections.
Using the user computer 102 and the interface module 302, the user 132 enters a choice for a media program. The user interface module 302 transmits a request message to a feed service 306 implemented by the media program provider 110 for a program identifier (PID). The PID is used to identify content such as a specific media program running on a specific distribution network. For example, season 2 of “The Office” running on www.hulu.com will have a different PID than the same exact show running on www.msn.com.
The feed service 306 then returns the PID to the user interface module 302. The PID and associated commands (e.g. the play command) are provided to the media program player 304. The media program player 304 may be embedded in a webpage from a third party, or may be part of a webpage maintained by the media program provider 110, or may be implemented in a standalone application.
The media program player 304 transmits the PID to a content selector 308 implemented by the media program provider 110. The content selector 308 identifies the actual path (uniform resource locator or URL, for example) to the requested media program associated with the transmitted PID, as well as programming metadata that is used by the media program player 304 to help identify restrictions (for example, preventing access to adult-themed content if the user 132 is known to be under 18), advertising targeting rules as well as advertising breaks. The advertising breaks indicate where advertisements may be inserted, and can be specified in terms of the time since the beginning of the media program, the time remaining, or any other suitable measure. The URL and the metadata are then transmitted to the media program player 304. The media program player provides a video request to the media server 114 at the URL received from the content selector 308. The video request includes the PID and may include other information as well. The video request may be for streaming or progressively downloading the requested media program.
The media streaming server (MSS) 114 responds to the video request by providing the media program to the user computer 102. In one embodiment, the MSS 114 is a service provider that has a wide range of geographically distributed computers that store replicated copies of media programs and website content. The MSS 114 can be a third party provider (e.g. only contractually associated with the media program provider 110), or can be part of the media program provider 110. Geographically diverse servers assures that when the user 132 requests playback of a media program, the media program is streamed from a geographically local server, to increase media program playback performance. Multiple servers also offer redundancy.
The MSS 114 obtains the media program from secure storage 312 which may be disposed in the media program provider 110 facility, or which may be disposed at a third party facility. The content management service 310 interfaces with the feed service 306, the content selector 308, and secure storage 312 to manage which media programs are provided to the media server 114. External entities 314 can include third parties such entities that provide the advertisements that are to be displayed to the user (which includes sponsors and/or their advertising agencies), third party providers of media programs, and entities from which the user 132 may purchase goods or services as further described below.
The media program is transmitted to the media program player 304. The media program may be streamed or progressively downloaded to the media program player 304. At or before the times identified in the advertising breaks defined above, the media program player 304 transmits an advertisement list request to the advertisement server (ad server) 322.
The ad server 322 includes an ad selection service 316, an auditing service 318 and a metadata cache service 320.
The ad selection service 316 is responsible for processing ad selection requests from the media program player 304 and decides on what advertisements the video player should display to the end user during an ad-break while honoring ad-targeting rules and campaign delivery (or pacing) constraints. Here, an ad-break is more generally defined as any temporal opportunity to show advertisements either before the media program is played (pre-roll), after the media program is played post-roll, or time slots during (interstitial) the video content that the user is watching (which may be predefined).
The ad selection service 316 is also responsible for tracking the number of times individual ads are selected and/or qualify for an ad selection request which will then be forwarded to the metadata cache service 320 for pacing calculations. These selection/qualification counters are maintained on a cumulative basis, and each instance of the ad selection service 316 may use an embedded database to persist them so progress can be preserved across service restarts and upgrades. Periodically, counters in the local database will also be synchronized to a global MySQL counters database (and vice versa in recovery scenario) to provide a single point of access for counters from all of the ad selection service 316 instances as well as an extra level of redundancy. In one embodiment, the ad selection service 316 is implemented in Java as a servlet running inside Apache Tomcat. Multiple instances of the ad selection service 316 can run simultaneously over geographically
The auditing service 318 is responsible for tracking the number of ad impression calls from the media player 304 on a per-ad basis and forward the impression counts to the metadata cache service 320 for pacing calculations. Note that the impression counters maintained by the auditing service 318 are only meant for providing near-real time feedback to the metadata cache service 320 for more accurate pacing calculations rather than for official billing/financial purposes. Instead, the number of impressions that advertisers eventually get billed comes from analyzing the service logs of the auditing service 318. Because of the critical nature of the impression log used for billing or financial purposes, a robust distributed edge server network is used as proxy to the auditing service 318 for the actual logging of impression calls.
Similar to the ad selection service 316, the auditing service 318 may implemented in Java as a servlet running inside Apache Tomcat. Each instance of the auditing service 318 also maintains a local Apache Derby impression counter database that gets periodically synchronized to the global MySQL counters database. Furthermore, the auditing service 318 is capable of having multiple instances of itself running over potentially geographically dispersed locations just like the ad selection service 316.
The metadata cache service 320 provides the following support services to the ad selection service 316 and the auditing service 318:
Only one instance of the metadata cache service 320 needs to be running to support all live instances of the ad selection service 316 and the auditing service 318 in production so all the ad selection services 316 get essentially the same near-real-time pacing information from a single the metadata cache service 320. Secondary instances of the metadata cache service 320 can run alongside the live instance to support side-by-side upgrade and fail-over scenarios but their pacing information will be based on slightly outdated selection and impression counters collected in the central counters.
The ad selector service 316 returns a message having an advertisement or playback list that describes which advertisements the player needs to play to the user at the appropriate advertisement breaks. The advertisement list may include the following information: (1) URLs of the advertisements/files (advertisements may include videos, banners and canvas). Advertisements may be hosted at the advertising provider 140, external entities 314 or the media program provider 110 and (2) the address or URL for impression audit calls to an auditing service 318. The auditing service 318 keeps track of which advertisements are presented to the user and when, and may be implemented by the media program provider 110 or by a third party service.
When the media program player 304 reaches and advertisement break, an ad is requested from the advertisement list using the URL, and an audit call is made to the auditing service 318. The advertisement is then received from the advertising provider and provided to the media program player 304 for display to the user. Typically, the advertising requested advertisement is streamed to the media program player 304 at the appropriate time, where it is displayed to the user 132, however, the media server 114 may obtain the advertisements from the advertising provider 140 and inserts the advertisements in the media program before or while the media program is streamed or progressively downloaded to the media program player 304.
Advertisement providers 140 typically have very specific requirements or rules that describe the circumstances in which they would like their advertisement to be presented to a user. For example, many advertisers do not want their advertisements to be presented in conjunction with media programs having R-rated content. Other examples including directing advertisements for gender-specific products only at the applicable gender or regional services only to users in that particular region. As a consequence, it is important that the advertisement server 322 quickly and accurately match advertisements with advertisement requests that meet the advertisement requirements. Since this must be accomplished in near real time, the process must be both rapid and reliable, and since the number of possible advertisements could be very large, the process must be scaleable.
At a more abstract level, an ad request from the video player can be considered to be a description of an ad serving opportunity, and choosing a proper semantic representation to describing the advertisement selection request can be a delicate balance between providing a flexible ad targeting rule semantic, providing for runtime efficiency of the ad matching algorithm, and ease of use for those working with the advertisement serving system throughout the day. Many advertisement servers (video or otherwise) accepts key-value (or attribute type-value) pairs to target advertisements at particular demographics. However, if all advertisement requests are expressed only as one or more of such key-value pairs, the advertisement selection can be simplified and accelerated.
To specify a more elaborate advertisement rule, multiple advertisement primitives 502 can be combined together with logical AND (&) and OR (|) operators, and an advertisement request would be said to satisfy the combined targeting rule if and only if the expression evaluates to TRUE. For example, the targeting rule:
X:CITY,CA/LOS ANGELES&I:SERIES,HOUSE&I:GENDER,F
will only match ad requests from female users outside of Los Angeles watching House.
The ad server 322 may be configured to allow arbitrary combination of the targeting primitives via AND and OR operations in the advertisement rule specification. However, such open-ended flexibility requires substantial complex computations so that all of the combinatorial possibilities are explored before arriving at a set of possible advertisements having rules that match advertising requests. This can limit the number of key-value pairs that can be considered and/or the number of candidate advertisements that can be considered, can place substantial demands on the computational speed and/or capacity of the computers performing such computations, and reduce response time. Of these factors, the reduced response time is perhaps the most onerous, as when an advertising request is received, the advertising server 322 often must generate a list of advertisements having primitives that satisfy the parameters of the advertising request.
Instead, the ad server 322 described herein adopts a more restrictive scheme for defining and combining advertisement rule primitives. This more restrictive scheme still permits virtually any logical combination of advertising rules 500, yet mandates that they be defined according to a semantic that allows most computations to be performed before the advertisement request is received. The semantic also allows the computations to be performed much more rapidly and using less memory than would be the case in a conventional system. Key features of the advertising rule semantic are:
More formally, the semantics of the advertisement rules in the ad server 322 are restricted to Boolean expressions of the form:
((X:K1,V1& . . . &X:K1,Vk)%(I:K1,Vk+1| . . . |I:K1,Vk+1))& . . . &((X:Kn,V1& . . . &X:Kn,Vp)&(I:Kn,Vp+1| . . . |I:Kn,Vk+1))
Under the foregoing restricted semantics, multiple advertisement rule primitives 502 for the same key-value can always be simplified into a single advertisement rule primitive 502 because:
In other words, there can be at most one effective advertising rule primitive for each distinct key-value pair. In fact, under the above semantic, we can omit the & and | operators altogether since there is only one way to connect a given set of targeting primitives, as shown in Table I below:
Wherein X refers to a key-value pair that define an exclusion from the rule, and I refers to a key-value pair that define an inclusion to the rule, V1
Applying the advertising rule of
Notice that the “X:PROFILE GENDER,M” advertising rule primitive evaluates to TRUE because the given request doesn't contain an advertising key-value pair “PROFILE GENDER,M”. In fact, the given request doesn't have an advertising request values for the advertising request key “GENDER” at all.
Also note that the advertisement request includes advertisement request key-values that are not required by the advertising rule (e.g. “OPERATING SYSTEM,WINDOWS” and “EDUCATION,HIGH SCHOOL”). These advertising rules therefore have no bearing on the final outcome of whether the advertisement request matches any of the advertisements, as defined by the advertisement rule.
Rolling up the result of the targeting primitives to their corresponding key group will give the result shown in Table V. Note that the Series key-group evaluates to true because at least one of the include advertisement rule primitives evaluates to true (series=CASTLE):
Further, since all key-groups specified in the advertisement rule evaluate to TRUE when compared to the advertising request, the given advertising request is considered a match for the advertising rule.
Consider the ad request shown in Table IV:
and the advertising rule shown in Table V:
Comparing the advertisement request of Table IV with the advertisement rules of Table V yields the result shown in Table VI:
Tolling up the result according to the key group produces the result shown in Table VII:
Since not all of the key-groups are evaluated to be TRUE, the given ad request is not considered to be a match for the advertisement rule. This example also illustrates the following aspects of advertisement rule evaluation:
The targeting rule evaluation process used in the previous examples is rather inefficient. Evaluation of each advertising rule primitive within an advertising rule involves a search for the corresponding key-value pair in the advertisement request, and the entire evaluation process has to be repeated for each live advertisement in the system in order to find the subset of advertisements that qualifies for a given advertisement request. Even opportunities for short-circuiting the evaluation process are taken advantage of, scaling a system to handle thousands of live advertisements and hundreds of advertisement selection requests per second is a significant challenge with the given targeting rule evaluation algorithm.
However, by exploiting the limitations we have imposed on the advertisement rule specification semantics, the following scheme can be used by the advertisement server 322 to evaluate the advertising rules of all advertisements quickly to determine if they qualify for an advertising request. Further, the since set operations (union and intersection) can be performed very quickly with simple AND and OR operations if sets are represented by bit-arrays, the scheme can be efficiently implemented.
Returning to
The “include” set—An advertisement belongs to the include set (K,V) iff it has an include advertisement rule primitive (I:K,V) or if it doesn't have any include targeting primitives for the key K.
The “exclude” set—All advertisements belong to the exclude set for (K,V) except for those having an exclude targeting primitive (X:K,V). (e.g. a logical 0 indicates that the advertising rule requires that the primitive be excluded)
“Empty Match” set—For each distinct key K referenced by all live targeting primitives, the metadata cache service 320 computes the bit-array for empty match sets. An “empty” match set is defined such that an ad belongs to the empty match set for a key K iff the advertisement rule does not contain any “include” advertisement rule primitives for that key K.
To illustrate the above process of computing the include set, the exclude set, and the empty set, and in particular by use of a bit array approach, consider the following example in which three advertisements, one for BUD LIGHT, one for RED BULL, and one for BMW, are considered “live” (e.g. suitable for use in responding to advertising requests
The metadata cache service 320 loads the array of advertisements described in Table X:
Further suppose that these advertisements are associated with the following advertising rules, which each have a plurality of advertisement rule primitives.
Based upon these advertisement rules, the metadata cache service 320 computes the include set, the exclude set and the empty set and express those sets in bit arrays.
An advertisement belongs to the include set for a key value pair (K,V) iff (1) the advertisement's advertisement rule has an advertisement rule primitive that has an include designator for that key-value pair (I:K,V) or (2) if the advertisement's advertisement rule has no advertisement rule primitives for the key K.
For example, in the above example, consider that block 802 selects the CONTENT RATING key, and block 804 selects the BUD LIGHT advertisement rule, and block 806 selects the “R” value. From above, it is noted that the advertisement rule primitives for the BUD LIGHT advertisement rule indicate that advertisement requests having an “R” value for the rating should be included (I:CONTENT RATING, R). Hence, the advertisement rule BUD LIGHT has an include designator for the “R” value, and the advertisement associated with the BUD LIGHT rule is designated as a member of the include set for the key-value pair (CONTENT RATING, R). This can be indicated by an include set bit array that has a “1” in the position corresponding to the content rating key and the R value, as shown in
Returning to the example, since all values for the key have not been considered (the BUD LIGHT advertising rule also has a rule primitive that includes the TV-MA value), processing returns to block 808, with and the TV-MA value is evaluated to determine if the advertising rule has an include designator for the key (CONTENT RATING) and the value (TV-14). It does not, because the other BUD LIGHT primitive that has the key-value pair (CONTENT RATING, TV-MA) has an exclude designator instead of an include designator. Since the logic of block 808 tests false, the next key value (TV-14) is considered. It also fails to qualify as a member of the include set, because the BUD LIGHT advertisement rule does not have a TV-14 value for the CONTENT RATING key.
Block 816 determines whether there are no “include” designators for any value of the key. In the current example, BUD LIGHT had an include designator for the “R” value of the CONTENT RATING key, so logic is passed to block 820, which determines that the advertisement associated with the rule is not a member of the include set for the remaining key values associated with the key. In the current example, this means that the advertisement associated with the advertising rule is not a member of the include set for the remaining key-value pairs (CONTENT RATING, TV-MA and CONTENT RATING, TV-14). This can be indicated by an include set bit array that has a “0” in the position corresponding to the content rating key and the TV-MA and TV-14 values, as shown in
Processing is then passed to block 822, which determines if all advertisement rules have been considered. If not, the next advertisement rule is considered and processing returns to block 806. In the aforementioned example, the RED BULL advertisement rule has not been considered, so blocks 822 and 824 set the rule as RED BULL. Block 806 sets the CONTENT RATING value to R and block 808 determines if the advertising rule has an include designator for the CONTENT RATING,R key-pair. As shown above, the RED BULL advertisement rule has an exclude designator, but not an include designator for the CONTENT RATING,R key-pair, so block 808 passes processing to block 812 so that the processing of blocks 814, 808 and 810 can be repeated for the remaining key-value pairs (CONTENT RATING, TV-MA and CONTENT RATING,TV-14). Since there is an include designator for the CONTENT RATING,TV-14 key-value pair, the advertisement associated with the advertisement rule RED BULL is designated as a member of the include set for the key-value pair CONTENT RATING, TV-14. Thereafter, block 820 designates RED BULL as not a member of the include set for key value pairs CONTENT RATING, R and CONTENT RATING, TV-MA. The result, expressed in a bit array, is shown in
Returning to
Note that this implements a rule whereby if an advertisement rule's advertising primitives specify only one value for a key (e.g. a TV-14 value for the CONTENT RATING key), it is assumed that the other members of the key group (here, the CONTENT RATING key group) are not members of the include set for the advertising rule. This is consistent with the notion that by specifying the I:CONTENT RATING,TV-14 rule primitive, the advertiser does not intend to specify the inclusion of any of the other values for the CONTENT RATING KEY. This is logically implemented by selecting a logical “0” for these bit array elements as shown in
Returning to
Finally, since the RED BULL advertisement rule includes the SITE CHANNEL, ANIMATIONS AND CARTOONS key value pair, the RED BULL advertisement rule is also in the include set for the SITE CHANNEL, ANIMATIONS AND CARTOONS key value pair.
Similar processing rules are applied to the SERIES key and the CITY key, with the results as shown in
Returning to
All advertisements belong to the exclude set for a given key-value pair (K,V) except for those having an exclude targeting primitive (X:K,V).
Block 1722 determines if all advertising rules have been considered. Since the RED BULL and BMW advertising rules have not been considered, processing is returned to block 1708 to consider the key-value pairs for those rules. The RED BULL advertising rule has two key value pairs associated with an exclude designator (R, TV-MA), so the advertisement rule is not a member of the exclude set for these two values. Accordingly, a zero is placed in the bitmap for these key value pairs. Further, since the key value pair CONTENT RATING, TV-14 is not associated with an exclude designator, it is a member of the exclude set for this key-value pair. Accordingly, the bitmap includes a zeros for the RED BULL advertising rule for the R and TV-MA values and a one for the TV-14 value.
Finally, the last advertising rule (BMW) is considered. Since the BMW advertising rule has no exclude designators for any key-value pairs associated with CONTENT RATING, processing is passed to block 1716, which determines that there are no exclude designators for the CONTENT RATING key, and block 1718 designates the BMW advertisement as a member of the exclude set for all values associated with the CONTENT RATING KEY. Accordingly, the bit map includes all ones for the BMW advertisement rule. The resulting bitmap is shown in
Returning to
Returning to
Blocks 2402-2406 set the rule key, the advertisement rule and the value for consideration. In the foregoing example, we first consider the CONTENT RATING key, the BUD LIGHT advertisement rule, and the R value. Block 2408 determines if the advertisement rule has an include key designator for the CONTENT RATING, R key pair. Since it does, block 2408 routes processing to block 2424 and thereafter to block 2406 to consider the next advertisement rule, RED BULL. Block 2408 then determines that the RED BULL rule does not have an include designator for the CONTENT RATING, R key value pair, and routes processing to block 2412. Block 2412 determines that not all values for the key have been considered, so processing is routed to block 2414 which sets the value to the next value (TV-MA) and routes processing back to block 2408. Since the CONTENT RATING, TV-MA key value pair does not have an include designator, block 2408 again tests as false, and blocks 2412 and 2414 route processing to consider the key value pair CONTENT RATING, TV-14. Block 2408 determines that the RED BULL advertisement rule has an include designator for the CONTENT RATING, TV-14 key value pair, so processing is routed to block 2424 to consider the next advertisement rule, BMW.
Block 2408 determines that the BMW advertisement rule does not have an include designator for the CONTENT RATING, R key value pair Likewise, blocks 2412, 2414 and 2408 consider whether the BMW advertisement rule has an include designator for the CONTENT RATING TV-MA key value pair or the CONTENT RATING, TV-14 key value pair. Since the answer is no in both cases, block 2416 determines that there were no include designators for the CONTENT RATING key for the BMW advertisement rule, and so passes processing to block 2418, which designates that the BMW ad associated with the BMW rule is a member of the empty set for all values associated with the CONTENT RATING KEY (including the R, TV-MA and TV-14 values). Accordingly, a “1” is placed in the bit array for the element relating BMW and the empty set for the CONTENT RATING key. The resulting bitmap is shown in
Block 2426 determines that all keys have not been examined, and passes processing to block 2428, which selects the next key for consideration (SITE CHANNEL, SERIES, or CITY) and routes processing to block 2404 so the key values for the advertising rules can be considered.
Note that the effect of the operations shown in
The foregoing results comprise the aforementioned first map relating each advertisement to its advertisement rule values. The results may be aggregated into a single bitmap as shown in
Returning to
Upon receiving the advertisement request above, the ad selection service 316 may use the information in the advertisement request such as the video ID, user ID, computer guID embedded in the request and/or the IP address of the user as information keys into the metadata caches service 320 to generate a list of key-value pairs (key=value) for the advertisement request such as:
PId=bd9MvLzKu1nA_ekQpqOKQpiZ9mdAxDrO
Site Channel=drama
Site Channel=drama/medical
Series=house
showdemo=FA18to49
showdemo=A18to49
Has Computer Guid=true
Player Mode=site
top_level_domain=
age=35-49
education=High school
employ=Full-time student
gender=m
household=no children
income=50 k-75 k
marital=Single, not living with domestic partner
env=prod
version=2
Noteworthy is the fact that the list of key-values above includes not just metadata about the related media program but also geographic and demographic information about the user. This provides a high degree of flexibility regarding how advertisers may can target their advertisements. Furthermore, since all information about an advertisement request is essentially a list of advertisement key-value pairs, and they can be compared to complementary logical advertisement rule “primitives” that evaluate to True or False.
Returning to block 426 of
To compute the subset of advertisements that qualify for a given advertisement request, the ad select service 316 retrieves at least a portion of the precomputed first map, and computes a second map from the portion of the precomputed first map, as shown in blocks 428 and 430. The portion of the precomputed first map that is retrieved are those portions which have ad rule key-values that match the key-value pairs in the advertising request. This is can be accomplished, for example, by using the key-value pairs of the advertisement request as index into the set of bit-arrays precomputed by the metadata cache service 320. Returning to the example described above, if the advertising request of Table XVIII is received:
In the example shown above, the advertisement select service 316 retrieves the portion of the bit map shown in
First, an a key of the received advertising request is selected for consideration, as shown in block 3102. Block 3104 determines whether that advertising request key has a value matching at least one of the advertising rule values. In the example above, suppose the CONTENT RATING ad request key the key selected in block 3102. Block 3104 would determine that the CONTENT RATING ad request key has at least one matching advertising rule value among the advertisements, so block 3104 would pass processing to block 3106. Block 3106 computes a logical OR of the advertisements that are members of the include set associated with the CONTENT RATING advertisement request key. The set members include advertisements having a TV-MA and TV-14 advertisement rule, as shown below in Table XIII.
Block 3108 computes the logical AND of advertisements that are a member of the exclude set associated with the ad request key (CONTENT RATING). The result is as shown in Table XIV below:
Block 3110 computes a cumulative complete set as a logical AND of the cumulative include set and the cumulative exclude set. The result is shown below in Table XV:
The computation of the cumulative complete set for the “content rating” key group can be summarized as shown in Table XVI below:
The advertisement request also included the SITE CHANNEL, SERIES, and CITY keys, so all keys have not been considered, and block 3114 tests negative and passes logic to block 3116. Block 3116 selects the next key (e.g. SITE CHANNEL) and passes processing to block 3104 which again determines if the ad request key SITE CHANNEL has a value matching at least one advertisement rule value. Since the SITE CHANNEL request key has the value COMEDY and none of the values associated with the advertisement rule SITE CHANNEL are COMEDY, block 3104 tests false, and processing is passed to block 2812, which sets the cumulative complete set for the current ad request key (SITE CHANNEL) as the empty set. The result is shown in Table XVII.
Using similar operations, the cumulative bit array for the “series” key group and the “city” key group are defined as shown in Tables XXIV and XXV respectively:
This indicates that both the Bud Light and BMW advertisement rules are satisfied by the advertising request (that the Bud Light and BMW advertisement rules permit those advertisements to be provided in response to the advertising request.
The above process can be summarized as follows. For each live distinct key K in the advertisement request, the ad select service 316:
Compared with the more intuitive targeting rule evaluation process used in the earlier examples, the bit-array-based approach has the following advantages:
Finally, returning to
Returning to
The decision regarding which of the advertisements to play and in which order can be determined in the media program player 304 itself, or can be determined by the ad select service 316. Further, the ad select service 316 may generate a preliminary playlist, and allow the media program player 304 to make the final determination of which advertisements to play and when. If desired, these final play decisions may be based on information that is kept private in the user's computer hosting the media program player 304.
This concludes the description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention. In summary, the present invention describes a method and apparatus for selecting a subset of advertisements complying with an advertisement request from a set of advertisements.
The foregoing description of the preferred embodiment of the invention has been presented for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching. It is intended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detailed description, but rather by the claims appended hereto. The above specification, examples and data provide a complete description of the manufacture and use of the composition of the invention. Since many embodiments of the invention can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, the invention resides in the claims hereinafter appended.
