Patent Application
20180088744
The present disclosure generally relates to computerized real-time and/or near-instant content delivery. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to techniques for providing computerized real-time and/or near-instant advertising content delivery to computing devices.
Users of the Internet may obtain essentially real-time news reporting from various websites. For example, users may visit news reporting websites and view webpages that report on different current events. Such webpages may include multimedia content, such as images and streaming video, that reflect the current event or reflect advertisements for viewing by the user. As technology advances, the quality of such content may increase, which may cause the size of such content to increase, and increase loading times of associated webpages. For example, video content may be streamed in high definition and image content may have a high resolution, which may increase the size and loading times of such webpages.
Additionally, users access real-time news reporting from a multitude of different computing devices, such as desktop computers, laptop computers, tablet computers, and mobile phones, for example. Such devices may require that webpages and/or multimedia content have particular display dimensions and resolutions, and may also include other technical requirements. Therefore, compatibility issues may occur, and loading times may again be increased.
Therefore, a need may exist for systems and methods that provide real-time and/or near-instant content delivery and overcome shortcomings associated with conventional processes.
Techniques for content delivery are disclosed. In accordance with one embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a method of content delivery comprising determining a slot of a webpage, determining a display area of a web browser displaying the webpage, determining a distance from the slot to a location of the display area, and comparing the distance to a first threshold, wherein the distance may be measured in pixels.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the method may further comprise determining that the distance is greater than the first threshold, wherein when the distance is greater than a first threshold, the slot is outside of the display area.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the method may further comprise queuing content for delivery to the slot, wherein the content may be delivered to the slot when the distance is determined to be less than the first threshold.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the method may further comprise determining that the distance is less than or equal to the first threshold, wherein when the distance is less than or equal to the first threshold, the slot is within the display area.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the method may further comprise delivering content to the slot.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the distance may be a diagonal distance from an edge of the slot to the location of the display area, wherein the location of the display area may be an edge of the display area.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the distance may be a diagonal distance from the center of the slot to the location of the display area, wherein the location of the display area may be the center of the display area.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the distance may be at least one of a vertical and horizontal distance a first location of the slot to the location of the display area.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the method may further comprise determining that a webpage is scrolling, wherein the scrolling may include at least one of vertical, horizontal, or diagonal scrolling, and determining a scrolling speed of the webpage based on the scrolling.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the method may further comprise comparing the scrolling speed to a scrolling threshold, and determining that the scrolling speed is above the scrolling threshold.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the method may further comprise delivering content to the slot.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the method may further comprise comparing the scrolling speed to a scrolling threshold, and determining that the scrolling speed is less than the scrolling threshold.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the method may further comprise queuing content for delivery to the slot, wherein the content may be delivered to the slot when the scrolling speed is determined to be greater than or equal to the scrolling threshold.
In accordance with another embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a system for content delivery comprising a processor configured to determine a slot of a webpage, determine a display area of a web browser displaying the webpage, determine a distance from the slot to a location of the display area, and compare the distance to a first threshold, wherein the distance may be measured in pixels.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the processor may be further configured to determine that the distance is greater than the first threshold, wherein when the distance is greater than a first threshold, the slot is outside of the display area.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the processor may be further configured to queue content for delivery to the slot, wherein the content may be delivered to the slot when the distance is determined to be less than the first threshold.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the processor may be further configured to determine that the distance is less than or equal to the first threshold, wherein when the distance is less than or equal to the first threshold, the slot is within the display area. In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the processor may be further configured to deliver content to the slot.
In accordance with another embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a method of content delivery comprising determining a slot of a webpage, determining a display area of a web browser displaying the webpage, determining that a webpage is scrolling, determining a scrolling speed of the webpage based on the scrolling, and comparing the scrolling speed to a scrolling threshold.
In accordance with further aspects of this embodiment, the method may comprise determining that the scrolling speed is above the scrolling threshold, and queuing content for delivery to the slot, wherein the content may be delivered to the slot when the scrolling speed is determined to be greater than or equal to the scrolling threshold.
In order to facilitate a fuller understanding of the present disclosure, reference is now made to the accompanying drawings, in which like elements are referenced with like numerals. These drawings should not be construed as limiting the present disclosure, but are intended to be illustrative only.
In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth regarding the systems and methods of the disclosed subject matter and the environment in which such systems and methods may operate in order to provide a thorough understanding of the disclosed subject matter. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art, however, that the disclosed subject matter may be practiced without such specific details, and that certain features, which are well known in the art, are not described in detail in order to avoid complication of the disclosed subject matter. In addition, it will be understood that the examples provided below are exemplary, and that it is contemplated that there are other systems and methods that are within the scope of the disclosed subject matter.
System 100 also includes network 104. Network 104 may be, for example, the Internet. Network 104 may be formed by a cellular network or a WIFI network. Network 104 may be a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN). Network 104 may be a wireless or wired network. Network 104 may provide for communication between the various elements of
System 100 also includes one or more website servers 106. Website server 106 may contain content that corresponds to a particular website. For example, website server 106 may include webpage data for a particular website. Device 102 may access website server 106 via network 104. For example, a device 102 may point its browser to a certain website that has its webpage data stored in website server 106. Website server 106 may then deliver the webpage data to device 102, and device 102 may display the webpage data in its browser.
System 100 may also include one or more advertisement servers 108. Advertisement server 108 may contain advertisement content for delivery to a device 102 alone or with webpage data from website server 106. For example, advertisement server 108 may include video, image, audio-visual, and/or audio advertisement content that is viewed and/or listened to via a browser of device 102 along with webpage data from website server 106. Advertisement server 108 may further include on one or more of supply side platform (SSP) technology that provides the selling on advertisement slots and media space, demand side platform (DSP) technology that allows for the bidding of advertising, and one or multiple libraries associated with SSP and/or DSP. Advertisement server 108 may also include one or more Google Publisher Tag (GPT) libraries, for example.
System 100 may also include rendering processor 110. Rendering processor 110 may be a database, server, desktop computer, laptop computer, portable device, or the like. Rendering processor 110 may communicate via network 104 with advertisement server 108, website server 106, and library database 112. Rendering processor 110 may alternatively be integrated with either advertisement server 108 or website server 106, and be part of the same computing device. Rendering processor 110 may perform various processes to provide improved speed and efficiency in the selection and loading advertising content provided by advertisement server 108 to device 102. Rendering processor 110 may perform processes in an asynchronous or synchronous manner. Rendering processor 110 is explained in further detail in
Rendering processor 110 may further include a process for ad slot configuration 204. Ad slot configuration 204 may include configuring advertisement content for webpages viewed on device 102. For example, rendering processor 110 may use ad slot configuration 204 to call an advertisement with a required resolution and/or dimensional display size for a device 102. If device 102 has a high resolution screen, it may require advertisement content with a high resolution. Moreover, if device 102 has a restricted display window (for example, because it is a tablet computer or mobile phone), device 102 may require advertisement content that has an appropriate dimensional display size. Rendering processor 110 may use ad slot configuration 204 to select appropriate advertising for device 102 that accounts for such characteristics of device 102. Ad slot configuration 204 may also utilize targeting key values when configuring advertising content. For example, ad slot configuration 204 may determine the genre or subject of advertisement content for rendering using key values associated with a device 102. The key values may be found in the cookies, local storage, or other available data resources of device 102.
Ad slot configuration 204 may further determine a time period for displaying advertisement content in an advertising slot. For example, ad slot configuration 204 may set one or more of a start date, start time, end data, and end time for advertisement content in a certain slot. The advertisement content may be automatically replaced in the slot when the time period ends.
Rendering processor 110 may include a custom HTML tag process 206. Custom HTML tag process 206 may include determining custom HTML tags associated with one or more of a browser of device 102, webpage data of website server 106, and advertisement content of advertisement server 108. By recognizing and processing custom HTML tags in custom HTML tag process 206, rendering processor 110 may recognize the requirements of advertising slots associated with webpage data, as well as the requirements of device 102 (such as resolution and display dimension, for example). Moreover, custom HTML tag process 206 may recognize custom HTML tags of advertisement content that reflect when such content is being generated or is ready for display on device 102. Custom HTML tag process 206 may improve the speed at which rendering processor 110 operates because it may reduce the amount of HTML code that must be parsed.
Rendering processor 110 may include key value targeting 208. Rendering processor 110 may include a collection of key values that correspond to certain subjects, genres, and products. Key values may include certain words, website addresses, and/or descriptors, for example. In key value targeting 208, rendering processor 110 may analyze data in the cookies, browsing history, and/or local storage, for example, of a device 102 for data that matches or appropriately corresponds to the collection of key values of rendering processor 110. By performing such analysis, rendering processor 110 may identify advertising content that may be of interest to a user of device 102, and may allow for the selection of such content to be sent to device 102. Therefore, key value targeting 208 may provide that targeted advertisements may be sent to a particular device 102.
New key values may be continuously added to rendering processor 110. These new key values may thereafter be used when analyzing data associated with a device 102. Furthermore, key values are fully customizable and may be edited.
Rendering processor 110 may include a process for dynamic inline ad insertion 210. This process determines when and where a selected advertisement from advertisement server 108 is inserted into the body of a webpage. For example, rendering processor 110 may use this process to determine whether advertising content should be located after a certain number of paragraphs, words, or characters on a webpage, for example. Rendering processor 110 may use dynamic inline ad insertion 210 to determine whether advertising content should be listed throughout a webpage or only in one location of a webpage. For example, the process may determine whether different or the same advertising content should be located throughout a webpage in different locations separated by a certain number of paragraphs, words, or characters, for example.
Moreover, rendering processor 110 may use this process to determine whether advertising content should be located next to image and/or video content on a webpage, or whether advertising content should instead be distanced from image and/or video content by a buffer space, or a certain number of paragraphs, words, or characters on a webpage. Dynamic inline ad insertion 210 may also restrict the amount of advertising content that is displayed on a webpage. For example, for webpages displaying short news articles that have a number of paragraphs, words, or characters below a certain threshold, dynamic inline ad insertion 210 may limit only a single advertisement to the webpage. In contrast, for example, for webpages displaying news articles that are of greater length that have a number of paragraphs, words, or characters above a certain threshold, dynamic inline ad insertion 210 may allow for more than a single advertisement to the webpage.
Rendering processor 110 may include a SSP (supply side platform) library process 212. Here, rendering processor 110 may send a single bid code to advertisement server 106 based on the one or more SSP libraries that advertisement server 106 includes. Advertisement server 106 may perform server to server bidding and deliver an advertisement for insertion into a webpage displayed by a device 102. Because rendering processor 110 need only send a single bid code to advertisement server 106 during SSP library process 212, the speed at which advertisements may be delivered may be increased. Moreover, multiple SSP libraries can be utilized without compromising the speed of advertisement delivery. One or more SSP scripts associated with the SSP libraries may be client side (e.g., at rendering processor 110 or device 102) or server side (e.g., at advertisement server 106) scripts.
Rendering processor 110 may include a GPT (Google Publisher Tag) library process 214. This process may be used with DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), for example. Here, delivered advertisements from advertisement server 106 may be readied for rendering and publishing to a webpage displayed by a device 102.
Rendering processor 110 may include a process for slot position analysis 216. In slot position analysis 216, rendering processor 110 analyzes and determines the location of an advertisement slot of a loaded webpage, and also analyzes and determines the display area of a device 102 browser displaying the webpage. Rendering processor 110 may recognize when a webpage is being scrolled up, down, and side to side by a user in a browser of device 102, and may determine the viewable display area of a browser. By performing such analysis, rendering processor 110 may determine whether an advertisement slot is located in a viewable display area of a browser or located off-screen in an area of the webpage that is not viewable to a user of device 102. If the advertisement slot is located off-screen, advertising content for that slot is not rendered. However, when the advertisement slot is located within a certain number of pixels to the viewable display area of the browser, or in the viewable display area of the browser, rendering processor 110 may perform its processes to bid and render an advertisement in the advertisement slot. Slot position analysis 216 may allow for improved loading times for webpages because only advertisements in or close to the viewable areas of a browser are displayed. Moreover, advertisements are not wasted by this process because the unnecessary loading of unviewed advertisements is avoided. Additionally, by allowing for the rendering of advertisements that are within a certain number of pixels to the viewable display area of the browser, users of a device 102 may be more likely to see the advertisement because it will likely have loaded by the time the display area is viewed.
At step 304, advertisement slot configuration is loaded. Here, one or more advertisement slots positioned on the loaded webpage are configured and readied for receiving advertisement content. At steps 306 and 308, SSP library/libraries and GPT library/libraries are loaded and advertising content is readied for rendering and delivery from advertisement server 108. The advertisement slot configuration allows configuration of the GPT settings in step 308, which may allow for the setting of targeting, size, node, asynchronous or synchronous loading, among other settings. These settings may be coded by javascript. It should be noted that according to certain embodiments, all of the scripts and loadings of the page, scripts, and libraries may occur at the same or substantially the same time, and that server side or client side caching for libraries, such as source dependency libraries, and scripts may occur.
At step 310, key value targeting may be performed. As discussed above with reference to
At step 312, a custom tag process occurs. Here, as discussed above in regard to
At step 314, the webpage view position of device 102 is determined. As discussed above in regard to
If the advertisement slot is located within a certain number of pixels to the viewable display area of the browser (e.g., inside a pre-render range or less than or equal to a pre-render range threshold), rendering processor 110 may perform its processes to bid and render advertising content in the advertisement slot. Steps 318 and 320 may occur, where SSP bidding and a DFP advertisement call may be performed. The SSP bidding of step 318 may be header SSP bidding, which may provide improved advertising content that is better matched to a user of device 102, but may increase latency and the time it takes to deliver and load advertisements to the loaded webpage. Therefore, SSP bidding of step 318 need not be header SSP bidding. In embodiments of the present disclosure, header bidding scripts may include A9, Index Exchange, Criteo, OpenX, AOL, and FaceBook, for example. These scripts may fetch from live databases and load asynchronously. In an embodiment, if any of the scripts take longer than a preset time value (e.g., 400 ms) to load, then it will be skipped to protect the performance of the system and allow for maximum resulting viewability. If the processes at steps 318 and/or 320 take too long, a direct advertising campaign may instead be provided where cached advertisement scripts and/or other cached data is used to deliver an advertisement to a device 102. For example, if the time expended at steps 318 and/or 320 exceeds a threshold, cached advertisement scripts and/or other cached data may be used to deliver an advertisement to a device 102.
After steps 318 and 320, advertising content is selected and readied for rendering and publishing to the loaded webpage.
It should be noted that the pre-render range may be a certain number of pixels diagonally, vertically, and/or horizontally from an edge, the center, or any other location of an advertisement slot to an edge, the center, or any other location of the viewable display area of the browser,
Instead of, or in addition to, the pre-render range analysis at step 316, a scrolling speed may be analyzed by rendering processor 110. For example, rendering processor 110 may estimate how fast a user of a device 102 is scrolling on a webpage of a browser by analyzing how a webpage is scrolled horizontally, vertically, and/or diagonally. Scrolling may be performed by a user touching a touch-screen interface of a device 102 with their finger or a stylus, for example, swiping a touch-screen interface of a device 102 with their finger or a stylus, for example, or by a user operating a computer mouse, keyboard, or other input device associated with device 102, for example. Scrolling may alternatively be performed in some other way by the user, such as by device 102 using detected motion of the user's body or device 102 measuring some other aspect of a user or a user's actions. Using this analysis, rendering processor 110 may determine time at which an advertisement slot that is currently outside of the viewable display area of the browser will be located inside the viewable display area. For example, if the scrolling speed is below a threshold and an advertisement is not likely to be displayed in a viewable display area of the browser within a certain time period, then advertising content for that slot is not rendered and is instead queued at step 316 until the slot is likely to be displayed in a viewable display area of the browser within a certain time period. Alternatively, for example, if the scrolling speed is above or equal to a threshold and an advertisement is likely to be displayed in a viewable display area of the browser within the certain time period, then rendering processor 110 may perform its processes to bid and render advertising content in the advertisement slot and steps 318 and 320 may occur.
The processes and analyses of step 314 may occur automatically. For example, advertisement slots may be automatically prioritized based on the distance of the slot to a viewable display area of a browser and/or the analyzed scrolling speed. For example, if a user of a device 102 has scrolled device 102 such that the viewable display area of its browser is in a center portion of a webpage, advertisement slots in the center portion may be rendered and displayed automatically, while advertisement slots outside of the viewable display area may not be rendered. In another example, if a user of a device 102 has scrolled device 102 at a speed that results in an advertisement being determined as likely present in a viewable display area of the browser, advertisement slots in the viewable display area may be rendered and displayed automatically, while advertisement slots outside of the viewable display area may not be rendered.
The processes of step 314 may help improve the speed at which advertising content is delivered to a webpage and/or the speed at which a webpage loads. This is because the loading of libraries and other scripts is performed in advance of advertisement rendering. The advertisement rendering, which may be data-heavy, is saved until the advertisement is located in a viewable area or is close to a viewable area, as discussed above.
Finally, at step 322, the advertising content is delivered to the loaded webpage to the configured slot(s) that are in the viewable area of a browser of device 102. After the advertising content is delivered to the loaded webpage, the process returns to step 314 and the webpage view position is again calculated. The process then continues again from step 314 for the loaded webpage. If a new webpage is loaded, or the current page is reloaded, the process restarts at step 302.
Content delivery operation 300 therefore may provide computerized real-time and/or near-instant advertising content delivery to computing devices, such as devices 102.
At this point it should be noted that techniques for providing computerized real-time and/or near-instant advertising content delivery to computing devices in accordance with the present disclosure as described above may involve the processing that may be implemented in hardware or software. For example, specific electronic components may be employed in a server or similar or related circuitry for implementing the functions associated with providing computerized real-time and/or near-instant advertising content delivery to computing devices in accordance with the present disclosure as described above. Alternatively, one or more processors operating in accordance with instructions may implement the functions associated with providing computerized real-time and/or near-instant advertising content delivery to computing devices in accordance with the present disclosure as described above. If such is the case, it is within the scope of the present disclosure that such instructions may be stored on one or more non-transitory processor readable storage media (e.g., a magnetic disk or other storage medium), or transmitted to one or more processors via one or more signals embodied in one or more carrier waves.
The present disclosure is not to be limited in scope by the specific embodiments described herein. Indeed, other various embodiments of and modifications to the present disclosure, in addition to those described herein, will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art from the foregoing description and accompanying drawings. Thus, such other embodiments and modifications are intended to fall within the scope of the present disclosure. Further, although the present disclosure has been described herein in the context of at least one particular implementation in at least one particular environment for at least one particular purpose, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that its usefulness is not limited thereto and that the present disclosure may be beneficially implemented in any number of environments for any number of purposes. Accordingly, the claims set forth below should be construed in view of the full breadth and spirit of the present disclosure as described herein.
This patent application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/400,056, filed on Sep. 26, 2016, the contents of which are incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62400056 | Sep 2016 | US |
