U.S. patent application number 12/551603 was filed with the patent office on 2010-04-08 for method and a system for advertising.
This patent application is currently assigned to Peer 39 Inc.. Invention is credited to Moshe Koppel, Amiad SOLOMON.
Application Number | 20100088321 12/551603 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 40799780 |
Filed Date | 2010-04-08 |
United States Patent
Application |
20100088321 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
SOLOMON; Amiad ; et
al. |
April 8, 2010 |
METHOD AND A SYSTEM FOR ADVERTISING
Abstract
A method for selecting an advertisement to be presented to a
network user. The method comprises identifying a reference to a
specific product in a document, reviewing an advertisement database
to select an advertisement related to the specific product, and
delivering an indication to the advertisement, thereby allowing the
advertisement to be presented to a network user accessing the
document.
Inventors: |
SOLOMON; Amiad; (Bronx,
NY) ; Koppel; Moshe; (Efrat, IL) |
Correspondence
Address: |
MARTIN D. MOYNIHAN d/b/a PRTSI, INC.
P.O. BOX 16446
ARLINGTON
VA
22215
US
|
Assignee: |
Peer 39 Inc.
Wilmington
DE
|
Family ID: |
40799780 |
Appl. No.: |
12/551603 |
Filed: |
September 1, 2009 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
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12347027 |
Dec 31, 2008 |
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12551603 |
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61071707 |
May 14, 2008 |
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61006221 |
Dec 31, 2007 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
707/749 ;
707/E17.071 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q 30/02 20130101;
G06F 16/435 20190101; G06F 16/9535 20190101; G06F 16/951
20190101 |
Class at
Publication: |
707/749 ;
707/E17.071 |
International
Class: |
G06F 17/30 20060101
G06F017/30 |
Claims
1. A method for selecting an advertisement to be presented to a
network user, comprising: a) identifying a reference to a specific
product in a document; b) reviewing an advertisement database to
select an advertisement related to said specific product; and c)
delivering an indication to said advertisement, thereby allowing
said advertisement to be presented to a network user accessing said
document.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying comprises
identifying said reference in a plurality of documents, said b) and
c) being performed for each said document.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein said plurality of documents are
related to a plurality of publishers.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein said delivering comprises
associating between said advertisement and said document.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein said product is a service.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein said advertisement database is
based on a hierarchical data model of a plurality of specific
products including said specific product.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein said reviewing comprises
performing a general-to-specific hierarchical search over said
hierarchical data model to find a match in said plurality of
specific products to said reference, said advertisement being
selected according to said match.
8. The method of claim 6, wherein said hierarchical data model is
arranged in a general-to-specific order of at least some of a group
consisting of: a manufacturer identifier, a supplier, a family of
models, a brand, a trademark.TM., a model, and a property of a
product.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the
advertisements of said advertisement database are weighted, said
advertisement being selected according to said weight.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein said document comprises at least
one categorizing attribute, said advertisement being selected
according to said at least one categorizing attribute.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein said at least one categorizing
attribute is a member of a group consisting of: the content of said
document, the publisher of said document, the type of said
document, the geolocation of said network user, the user profile of
said network user, the business method of the publisher of said
document, and the visitors of said document.
12. The method of claim 1, wherein said delivering comprising
delivering said advertisement.
13. The method of claim 1, wherein said document is a member of a
group consisting of: a forum webpage, a webpage, a video file, an
audio file, a text document, a spreadsheet document.
14. The method of claim 1, wherein said delivering comprises a
member of a group consisting of: embedding an indirect advertising
related to said specific product in said document, displaying said
advertisement, activating said advertisement, and playing said
advertisement.
15. The method of claim 1, wherein said advertisement comprises an
offer to purchase or a promotion to a member of a group consisting
of: said specific product, a related product having properties
similar to the properties of said specific product, a related
product having a market similar to the market of said specific
product, an accessory to said specific product, and a complementary
product to said specific product.
16. The method of claim 1, wherein said reference comprises a
member of a group consisting of: a textual reference, a vocal
reference, and a visual reference.
17. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying a request
to access said document before a).
18. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying comprises
identifying a plurality of references to a plurality of specific
products in said document, said reviewing comprising reviewing said
database to select an advertisement for each said specific
product.
19. The method of claim 18, wherein said delivering comprising
delivering said advertisements to be presented to said network
user.
20. The method of claim 18, further comprising combining said
advertisements for creating a combined advertisement before said
delivering, said delivering comprising delivering said combined
advertisement.
21. The method of claim 1, further comprises adjusting said
advertisement according to said document before said
delivering.
22. The method of claim 21, wherein said adjusting comprises
adjusting said advertisement according to a member of a group
consisting of: the content of said document, the publisher of said
document, the type of said document, and the visitors of said
document.
23. A system for delivering an advertisement to be presented to a
network user, comprising: a receiving module configured for
reviewing a document and identifying a reference to a specific
product therein; an analysis unit configured for selecting an
advertisement related to said specific product from a database
hosting a plurality of advertisements; and an output unit for
delivering an indication of said selected advertisement, thereby
allowing said selected advertisement to be presented to a network
user accessing said document.
24. A system for advertising a specific product, comprising: a
mapping module for mapping a plurality of documents each according
to a reference to a specific product therein; a matching module
configured for receiving an advertisement related to one of said
specific product and matching said advertisement with at least one
of said plurality of documents having a reference to said specific
product; and an output module configured for delivering an
indication of said advertisement, thereby allowing said
advertisement to be presented to a network user accessing said
matched at least one document.
25. The system of claim 24, wherein said plurality of documents are
related to a plurality of publishers.
26. A method for advertising a product, comprising: managing a list
of a plurality of documents, each said document being indexed
according to an internal product reference; receiving a request for
advertising a promoted product; reviewing said list to select at
least one of said plurality of documents having an internal product
reference related to said promoted product; and delivering an
indication for an advertisement to said promoted product, thereby
allowing said advertisement to be presented to a network user
accessing said selected at least one document.
27. The method of claim 26, wherein said plurality of documents are
related to a plurality of publishers.
28. The method of claim 26, wherein said product is a service.
29. The method of claim 26, wherein said at least one selected
document having at least one categorizing attribute which is
related to said internal product reference.
30. The method of claim 29, wherein said at least one categorizing
attributes comprises a member of a group consisting of: a
characteristic of the referred product, a price, a condition, an
advantage of the referred product, a disadvantage of said
product.
31. The method of claim 26, wherein said at least one of said
plurality of documents are selected according to the position of
said internal product reference therein.
32. The method of claim 26, wherein said at least one of said
plurality of documents are selected according to the incidence of
said internal product reference therein.
33. The method of claim 26, wherein each said document having a
publisher and is indexed according to the relevancy of said
publisher to respective said internal product reference.
34. The method of claim 26, wherein said list includes a plurality
of connected nodes, each said node comprising a member of a group
consisting of: a manufacturer identifier, a supplier, a brand, a
trademark.TM., a model, and a property of a product.
35. The method of claim 34, wherein said plurality of connected
nodes are arranged in a general-to-specific hierarchy.
36. The method of claim 34, wherein said document is a member of a
group consisting of: a webpage, a video file, an audio file, such
as a podcast, a WORD document, a portable document format (PDF), a
spread sheet, document, an extensible markup language (XML) page, a
hypertext markup language (HTML) page, and a network accessible
content file.
37. The method of claim 34, wherein each said document having an
advertising cost, said receiving comprises a budget for said
advertisement, said reviewing comprises reviewing said list to
select at least one of said plurality of documents according to a
match between said budget and said an advertising cost.
38. A method for advertising products, comprising: managing a list
of a plurality of documents each said document having a reference
to a specific product; receiving a request for advertising a
promoted product from an advertiser; selecting at least one of said
plurality of documents according to a match between said promoted
product and said specific products; and delivering an indication of
an advertisement for said promoted product, thereby allowing said
advertisement to be displayed to at least one network user
accessing said selected at least one document.
39. A method for advertising products, comprising: arranging a
plurality of product indications each to at least one member of a
group consisting of: a manufacturer identifier, a supplier, a
family of models, a brand, a trademark.TM., a model, and a property
of a product; associating at least one advertisement with at least
some of said plurality of product indications; identifying at least
one of said plurality of product indications in a document; and
delivering at least one advertisement indication according to at
least one of said plurality of product indications.
40. The method of claim 39, wherein said plurality of product
indications are arranged in a general-to-specific hierarchical
order, said identifying comprising searching said plurality of
product indications according to said general-to-specific
hierarchical order.
41. The method of claim 40, wherein said at least one advertisement
indication indicates on an advertisement associated with a more
specific product indication than said identified at least one
product indication.
Description
RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 12/347,027 filed Dec. 31, 2008, which claims
the benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Applications
Nos. 61/071,707 filed May 14, 2008 and 61/006,221 filed Dec. 31,
2007, the contents of which are incorporated herein by
reference.
FIELD AND BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates
to a system and a method for advertising and, more particularly,
but not exclusively, to a system and a method for advertising
products.
[0003] Internet based advertising is an important mechanism that
enterprises use to communicate with customers. With the
introduction of the Internet, new advertising and communication
possibilities with customers have been created, which offer the
potential of greatly enhanced and more effective advertising
techniques for businesses. Online visitors to websites on the
Internet may be directed to a company's website in several ways
including, for example, paid-for advertisements that link to a
merchant's website or links presented in the natural search results
presented by a search engine, such as Yahoo!.TM., MSN.TM., or
Google.TM. in response to a visitor's language query. Consumers are
showing an increasing preference for using the Internet when
searching for purchases, as compared to traditional media outlets.
These conclusions are supported by the increasing demand for, and
proliferation of, high-speed Internet connections throughout the
United States and worldwide. As the Internet grows in popularity
and felt necessity, the volume of businesses advertising and
communicating over the Internet promises to increase in a
corresponding manner.
[0004] In light of this progression, a number of systems and
methods have been developed for enhancing the Internet based
advertising.
[0005] For example, U.S. Pat. App. 2007/0244750, published on Oct.
18, 2007 describes a method for selecting targeted advertising, is
disclosed including monitoring subscriber event data from a first
and a second access subscriber device, calculating a product
interest correlation score in a plurality of product categories for
the subscriber based on the subscriber event data, reviewing an
advertiser database to select an advertisement in the product
categories, and selecting a format to deliver the selected
advertisement to a third subscriber access device. In another
embodiment, a system is disclosed for selecting an advertisement to
send to a subscriber, including an internet profiling module that
monitors subscriber event data, an internet profiling database for
storing and classifying the event data monitored by the internet
profiling module, an advertiser index database for storing
advertiser detail information, and an intelligent correlation
scoring system (ICSS) processor coupled to the internet profiling
database, user profile and the advertiser index database.
[0006] Another example is U.S. Pat. App. 2007/0203807, published on
Aug. 30, 2007 that describes a system that searches a shopper's
list for specific products that the shopper is planning to buy. For
example, suppose a merchant wants to target shoppers that have a
particular brand or brands of bathroom tissue in their shopping
list. The merchant could have the system display an advertisement
to the shopper offering the shopper the brand of bathroom tissue
that the shopper has in their list or a house brand for a very low
price or even free with an order. If the shopper clicks through on
the advertisement, the shopper will enter the merchant's site
through a special URL specified by the merchant along with the
active shopping list in an attached data packet.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0007] According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present
invention there is provided a method for selecting an advertisement
to be presented to a network user. The method comprises a)
identifying a reference to a specific product in a document, b)
reviewing an advertisement database to select an advertisement
related to the specific product, and c) delivering an indication to
the advertisement, thereby allowing the advertisement to be
presented to a network user accessing the document.
[0008] Optionally, the identifying comprises identifying the
reference in a plurality of documents, the b) and c) being
performed for each the document.
[0009] More optionally, the plurality of documents are related to a
plurality of publishers.
[0010] Optionally, the delivering comprises associating between the
advertisement and the document.
[0011] Optionally, the product is a service.
[0012] Optionally, the advertisement database is based on a
hierarchical data model of a plurality of specific products
including the specific product.
[0013] More optionally, the reviewing comprises performing a
general-to-specific hierarchical search over the hierarchical data
model to find a match in the plurality of specific products to the
reference, the advertisement being selected according to the
match.
[0014] More optionally, the hierarchical data model is arranged in
a general-to-specific order of at least some of a group consisting
of: a manufacturer identifier, a supplier, a family of models, a
brand, a trademark.TM., a model, and a property of a product.
[0015] Optionally, at least some of the advertisements of the
advertisement database are weighted, the advertisement being
selected according to the weight.
[0016] Optionally, the document comprises at least one categorizing
attribute, the advertisement being selected according to the at
least one categorizing attribute.
[0017] More optionally, the at least one categorizing attribute is
a member of a group consisting of: the content of the document, the
publisher of the document, the type of the document, the
geolocation of the network user, the user profile of the network
user, the business method of the publisher of the document, and the
visitors of the document.
[0018] Optionally, the delivering comprising delivering the
advertisement.
[0019] Optionally, the document is a member of a group consisting
of: a forum webpage, a webpage, a video file, an audio file, a text
document, a spreadsheet document.
[0020] Optionally, the delivering comprises a member of a group
consisting of:
[0021] embedding an indirect advertising related to the specific
product in the document, displaying the advertisement, activating
the advertisement, and playing the advertisement.
[0022] Optionally, the advertisement comprises an offer to purchase
or a promotion to a member of a group consisting of: the specific
product, a related product having properties similar to the
properties of the specific product, a related product having a
market similar to the market of the specific product, an accessory
to the specific product, and a complementary product to the
specific product.
[0023] Optionally, the reference comprises a member of a group
consisting of: a textual reference, a vocal reference, and a visual
reference.
[0024] Optionally the method further comprises identifying a
request to access the document before a).
[0025] Optionally, the identifying comprises identifying a
plurality of references to a plurality of specific products in the
document, the reviewing comprising reviewing the database to select
an advertisement for each the specific product.
[0026] More optionally, the delivering comprising delivering the
advertisements to be presented to the network user.
[0027] Optionally, the method further comprises combining the
advertisements for creating a combined advertisement before the
delivering, the delivering comprising delivering the combined
advertisement.
[0028] Optionally, the method further comprises adjusting the
advertisement according to the document before the delivering.
[0029] More optionally, the adjusting comprises adjusting the
advertisement according to a member of a group consisting of: the
content of the document, the publisher of the document, the type of
the document, and the visitors of the document.
[0030] According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present
invention there is provided a system for delivering an
advertisement to be presented to a network user. The system
comprises a receiving module configured for reviewing a document
and identifying a reference to a specific product therein, an
analysis unit configured for selecting an advertisement related to
the specific product from a database hosting a plurality of
advertisements, and an output unit for delivering an indication of
the selected advertisement, thereby allowing the selected
advertisement to be presented to a network user accessing the
document.
[0031] According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present
invention there is provided a system for advertising a specific
product. The system comprises a mapping module for mapping a
plurality of documents each according to a reference to a specific
product therein, a matching module configured for receiving an
advertisement related to one of the specific product and matching
the advertisement with at least one of the plurality of documents
having a reference to the specific product, and an output module
configured for delivering an indication of the advertisement. This
output module allows the advertisement to be presented to a network
user accessing the matched at least one document.
[0032] Optionally, the plurality of documents are related to a
plurality of publishers.
[0033] According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present
invention there is provided a method for advertising a product. The
method comprises managing a list of a plurality of documents, each
the document being indexed according to an internal product
reference, receiving a request for advertising a promoted product,
reviewing the list to select at least one of the plurality of
documents having an internal product reference related to the
promoted product, and delivering an indication for an advertisement
to the promoted product, thereby allowing the advertisement to be
presented to a network user accessing the selected at least one
document.
[0034] Optionally, the plurality of documents are related to a
plurality of publishers.
[0035] Optionally, the product is a service.
[0036] Optionally, the at least one selected document having at
least one categorizing attribute which is related to the internal
product reference.
[0037] More optionally, the at least one categorizing attributes
comprises a member of a group consisting of: a characteristic of
the referred product, a price, a condition, an advantage of the
referred product, a disadvantage of the product.
[0038] Optionally, the at least one of the plurality of documents
are selected according to the position of the internal product
reference therein.
[0039] Optionally, the at least one of the plurality of documents
are selected according to the incidence of the internal product
reference therein.
[0040] Optionally, each the document having a publisher and is
indexed according to the relevancy of the publisher to respective
the internal product reference.
[0041] Optionally, the list includes a plurality of connected
nodes, each the node comprising a member of a group consisting of:
a manufacturer identifier, a supplier, a brand, a trademark.TM., a
model, and a property of a product.
[0042] More optionally, the plurality of connected nodes are
arranged in a general-to-specific hierarchy.
[0043] More optionally, the document is a member of a group
consisting of: a webpage, a video file, an audio file, such as a
podcast, a WORD document, a portable document format (PDF), a
spreadsheet, document, an extensible markup language (XML) page, a
hypertext markup language (HTML) page, and a network accessible
content file.
[0044] More optionally, each the document having an advertising
cost, the receiving comprises a budget for the advertisement, the
reviewing comprises reviewing the list to select at least one of
the plurality of documents according to a match between the budget
and the an advertising cost.
[0045] According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present
invention there is provided a method for advertising products. The
method comprises managing a list of a plurality of documents each
the document having a reference to a specific product, receiving a
request for advertising a promoted product from an advertiser,
selecting at least one of the plurality of documents according to a
match between the promoted product and the specific products, and
delivering an indication of an advertisement for the promoted
product, thereby allowing the advertisement to be displayed to at
least one network user accessing the selected at least one
document.
[0046] According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present
invention there is provided a method for advertising products. The
method comprises arranging a plurality of product indications each
to at least one member of a group consisting of: a manufacturer
identifier, a supplier, a family of models, a brand, a
trademark.TM., a model, and a property of a product, associating at
least one advertisement with at least some of the plurality of
product indications, identifying at least one of the plurality of
product indications in a document, and delivering at least one
advertisement indication according to at least one of the plurality
of product indications.
[0047] Optionally, the plurality of product indications are
arranged in a general-to-specific hierarchical order, the
identifying comprising searching the plurality of product
indications according to the general-to-specific hierarchical
order.
[0048] More optionally, the at least one advertisement indication
indicates on an advertisement associated with a more specific
product indication than the identified at least one product
indication.
[0049] Unless otherwise defined, all technical and/or scientific
terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by
one of ordinary skill in the art to which the invention pertains.
Although methods and materials similar or equivalent to those
described herein can be used in the practice or testing of
embodiments of the invention, exemplary methods and/or materials
are described below. In case of conflict, the patent specification,
including definitions, will control. In addition, the materials,
methods, and examples are illustrative only and are not intended to
be necessarily limiting.
[0050] Implementation of the method and/or system of embodiments of
the invention can involve performing or completing selected tasks
manually, automatically, or a combination thereof. Moreover,
according to actual instrumentation and equipment of embodiments of
the method and/or system of the invention, several selected tasks
could be implemented by hardware, by software or by firmware or by
a combination thereof using an operating system.
[0051] For example, hardware for performing selected tasks
according to embodiments of the invention could be implemented as a
chip or a circuit. As software, selected tasks according to
embodiments of the invention could be implemented as a plurality of
software instructions being executed by a computer using any
suitable operating system. In an exemplary embodiment of the
invention, one or more tasks according to exemplary embodiments of
method and/or system as described herein are performed by a data
processor, such as a computing platform for executing a plurality
of instructions. Optionally, the data processor includes a volatile
memory for storing instructions and/or data and/or a non-volatile
storage, for example, a magnetic hard-disk and/or removable media,
for storing instructions and/or data. Optionally, a network
connection is provided as well. A display and/or a user input
device such as a keyboard or mouse are optionally provided as
well.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0052] Some embodiments of the invention are herein described, by
way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings.
With specific reference now to the drawings in detail, it is
stressed that the particulars shown are by way of example and for
purposes of illustrative discussion of embodiments of the
invention. In this regard, the description taken with the drawings
makes apparent to those skilled in the art how embodiments of the
invention may be practiced.
[0053] In the drawings:
[0054] FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of system for advertising
a product, according to some embodiments of the present
invention;
[0055] FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a method for advertising a product,
according to some embodiments of the present invention;
[0056] FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a method for selecting an
advertisement to be displayed to a network user, according to some
embodiments of the present invention;
[0057] FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of the hierarchy of a
dataset that is reviewed for selecting an advertisement, according
to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;
[0058] FIG. 5 is another schematic illustration of the system of
FIG. 1, according to some embodiment of the present invention;
and
[0059] FIGS. 6 and 7 are respectively a clean image and an image
with schematic illustrations of ranks and analyzed words, both of
an exemplary webpage, according to some embodiments of the present
invention.
DESCRIPTION OF SPECIFIC EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION
[0060] The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates
to a system and a method for advertising and, more particularly,
but not exclusively, to a system and a method for advertising
products.
[0061] According to some embodiments of the present invention there
is provided a system and a method for selecting an advertisement to
be presented to a network user. The method comprises identifying a
reference to a specific product or a service in a document, such as
a webpage, reviewing an advertisement database, a list, or an index
that maps advertisements according to products in order to select
an advertisement which is related to the specific product. An
indication of the selected advertisement is delivered to the ad
server of the document and/or to the hosting server of the
document, allowing the presentation of the selected advertisement
to network users that access the document. In such a manner, a
website, such as a forum that refers to a specific product can be
used as an advertising platform to an offer and/or a promotion to
the specific product or to related products, such as accessories,
complementary products, and products with similar market and/or
properties. The document, an indication to the association between
the advertisement and the document is hosted in order to allow the
presentation of the advertisement to the following network
users.
[0062] According to some embodiments of the present invention there
is provided a system and a method for advertising a product or a
service. In such an embodiment, the method comprises managing an
index or a list of a plurality of documents, such as webpages, each
mapped according to an internal reference to a specific product,
such as a textual, visual, and/or audible reference. The method
further includes receiving an advertisement or a request for an
advertisement for an advertised product and reviewing the list to
select one or more of the managed documents that refer to a
specific product that is related to the advertised product. After
the one or more managed documents have been selected, the
advertisement or an indication thereto is delivered, optionally to
an advertisement server or to the server that hosts the one or more
managed documents. The delivery allows the presenting of the
advertisement to network users that access the one or more
documents. The management of such a list of documents can be used
to define a bundle of documents that refer to a specific product
without having information about the network users that visit these
documents and/or about the publishers, for example the websites,
that link to and/or associated with these documents. In such a
manner, an advertising space in a bundle of documents, such as
forum and social network webpages, can be allocated for advertising
a product that is related to the reference in these documents even
if the publishers of these documents are not associated with the
related product and/or did not identified their documents as
suitable for advertising such related products. For example, a
social network website that hosts a personal webpage with several
paragraphs that refer to a specific product, such as iPod Nano.TM.
may be selected by the aforementioned method for advertising
related products. The aforementioned system allows identifying such
a personal webpage as a member of a bundle of documents that refer
to iPod Nano.TM.. The bundle may include webpages that also refer
to iPod Nano.TM. from other publishers, such as webpages of various
forums and of technical experts. The bundle allows an advertiser
that want to offer for sell or to promote the iPod Nano.TM. to
associate an advertisement with this webpages. In such a manner, a
network user that visits one of these webpages, for example the
aforementioned personal webpage, for instance after being referred
thereto by a search engine, will be presented with the
advertisement of the advertiser while reading references related to
the iPod Nano.TM.. It should be noted that an advertisement for
complementary products, such as an iPod case, accessories, such as
earphones, alternative products, such as Creative Zen.TM. or any
other media player, and/or any product that has been identified as
having the same market as the iPod Nano.TM. may be associate with
the members of the bundle.
[0063] Before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention
in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not
necessarily limited in its application to the details of
construction and the arrangement of the components and/or methods
set forth in the following description and/or illustrated in the
drawings and/or the Examples. The invention is capable of other
embodiments or of being practiced or carried out in various
ways.
[0064] Reference is now made to FIG. 1, which is a schematic
illustration of system 100 for advertising a product, according to
some embodiments of the present invention. The system 100 comprises
a mapping module 101 for creating a list of documents 104 that
refers to specific products. As used herein a product means a
product, a service, a website, a show, and/or a movie, and a
document means a webpage, a video file, an audio file, such as a
podcast, a WORD document, a portable document format (PDF)
document, an excel spreadsheet document, an extensible markup
language (XML) page, a hypertext markup language (HTML) page, an
Internet page, or any other content file which is accessible via a
communication network. Optionally, the documents are related to
different publishers. As used herein a publisher means a website, a
web-based database, or any other entity that supplies advertising
services and/or space.
[0065] The system 100 further comprises a matching module 103 and
an output module 102. The system allows matching between an
advertisement which is related to a certain product and one or more
documents that refer to the product. The matching allows a
presentation of the advertisement to network users that access
these documents, optionally regardless to the publisher of the
documents and/or the identity of the accessing network users. The
system is optionally designed to manage and to update the list of
documents, optionally as described below. The list is arranged as a
dataset, such as a hierarchical storage structure with constant
updateability.
[0066] Furthermore, the system 100 allows advertisers to purchase
space and/or a service for advertising and/or promoting a specific
product, a product with properties and/or a market that is similar
to the properties and/or the market of the specific product, and
accessories or complementary products which are related to the
specific product that is delivered to be presented in one or more
selected documents that include a reference to the specific product
in a bundle of documents which may be referred to the specific
product and/or to the related products. For example, an ecommerce
store can add an advertisement that advertises or promotes an offer
for a gadget in a webpage of a forum that discuss the gadget. As
used herein a specific product means one or more products or
services which are uniquely identified by an identifier such as a
model number, a model label, a family of models, a label, a brand,
a trademark, or any combination thereof.
[0067] Reference is now also made to FIG. 2, which is a flowchart
of a method 200 for advertising a product, according to some
embodiments of the present invention. As described above and shown
at 201, the system 100 creates the list 104. Optionally, the list
104 comprises a list of documents each associated with one or more
products that it refers to. Optionally, the documents and/or the
products are taken from a predefined list. Optionally, the mapping
module 101 uses one or more mapping terminals, such as GNU/Linux
computers, for mapping the documents and storing the list.
Optionally, the mapping terminal 101 runs one or more crawlers for
the mapping. Optionally, in order to ensure that the list is
up-to-date, the web crawlers periodically request new copies of one
or more of the documents. In such a manner, advertisements can be
adjusted according to changes in a forum that discuss new products
and updated frequently. For clarity, the web crawler, which is also
known as a web spider or web robot, is a program or automated
script that browses a network, such as the world wide web (WWW), or
any segment thereof in a methodical, automated manner. The crawling
of the web crawler is well known and therefore not described herein
in detail. Optionally, the web crawler examines the links in these
documents in order to discover new documents that may refer to one
or more of the products.
[0068] After the list is created, as shown at 202, the matching
module 103 receives an advertisement which is related to the one of
the referred products. As used herein an advertisement means an
advertisement or series of advertisements for a product including
but not limited to a banner advertisement, an audio advertisement,
a video advertisement, a splash page advertisement, a pop-up
advertisement, a flash advertisement, a request for an
advertisement space, and a floating advertisement. Optionally, an
advertisement means an indication, such as a link, an address, an
identifier, a serial number, or any other value or reference that
can be used to for accessing and/or selecting an advertisement. The
advertisement may be used for promoting one or more products which
are related to one or more of the referred products and for driving
the traffic of network users to documents that promote and/or offer
for sale of these products. Optionally, as used herein, an
advertisement also means a promotional content that is embedded in
the content of a certain document. In such an embodiment, the
promotional content may be a segment of the document, which is not
allocated for advertisements, for example a product that appears in
an image or a video clip, an article that review a product and/or a
service, a story or an article that mentions the product, or any
other format of indirect advertising.
[0069] Then, as shown at 203, the matching module 103 reviews the
list to select at least one of the mapped documents that includes a
reference to a product that is related to the product that is
offered and/or promoted in the advertisement. As used herein a
reference means a textual reference, such as a word, a phrase,
and/or a serial number, a vocal reference, and/or a visual
reference, such as an image of the product and/or a video clip that
includes one or more frame that depicts the product. An example for
such a document may be a webpage, such as a forum webpage and/or a
chat window, a social network page, or in an instant messaging (IM)
window that includes discussions or questions and answers (Q&A)
about products. Another example may be a video clip or an image
that a contributor, such as a forum subscriber, has uploaded.
[0070] Now, as shown at 204, the output module 102 delivers the
advertisement to be displayed to a network user that accesses the
selected documents or an indication thereto. Optionally, the
advertisement is delivered to one or more servers which are related
to the selected documents. The related servers may be advertisement
servers, as shown at 105, optionally as described below, or hosting
servers that hosts the related documents, for example such as
website servers. By delivering the advertisement, or an indication
thereto, to these servers the system 100 and/or the method 200
allows the presenting of the advertisement to a network user 106
that accesses the selected documents. As used herein, presenting
means, playing, displaying, and/or activating the
advertisement.
[0071] In some embodiments of the present invention, the system 100
allows advertisers to select documents which have a direct relation
to their product. As described above, an advertisement that
promotes a specific product, a product with properties and/or
market that is similar to the properties and/or the market of the
specific product, and accessories or complementary products to the
specific product is delivered to be presented in one or more
selected documents that include a reference to the specific
product. As these documents include references to the specific
product, it is likely that network users, who visit them, are
interested in information and/or offers which are related to the
specific products, its properties, accessories thereto, and/or
related complementary products.
[0072] In such a manner, the advertiser can use the system 100 for
targeted advertising in a group of documents that refer to a common
product and/or one or more members of a group of related products.
Optionally, the advertiser does not have information about the
network users that visit the group of documents and/or about the
publishers that link to and/or associated with the group of
documents.
[0073] Reference is now made, once again, to FIG. 1 and to FIG. 3,
which is a flowchart of a method for selecting an advertisement to
be displayed to a network user 106, according to some embodiments
of the present invention. First, as described in 150, a reference
to a specific product is identified in a document that is or may be
accessed by the network user 106. Optionally, the identification is
performed in response to the reception of a request for an
advertisement, optionally as described below. Now, as shown at 151,
using a dataset, optionally hierarchical, of advertisements is
reviewed to select an advertisement that is related to the specific
product. For improving the computational complexity of the
reviewing of the dataset is optionally a hierarchical dataset of
nodes, each define and/or represents a manufacturer, a brand, a
trademark.TM., a model, and/or a property which is related to a
specific product, for example as shown at FIG. 4 and further
described below. The advertisements are optionally connected to the
nodes and may be hosted in one or more advertisement servers, as
shown at 105, which are distributed in various geographical
locations. Now, as shown at 153, the selected advertisement is
delivered to be displayed to the network user. Optionally, the
mapping module 101 maps the document in the list 104.
[0074] Reference is now also made to FIG. 5, which is a schematic
illustration of the system 100, according to some embodiment of the
present invention. The mapping module 101 and the matching module
103 are as depicted in FIG. 1. However, FIG. 5 further depicts
additional modules, sub-modules, and repositories. FIG. 5 depicts a
number of advertisement servers 105 that host advertisements for a
number of advertisers 314. The delivering of the advertisements to
various webpages 315 of various publishers or the delivering
indications to these advertisements is managed by the system
100.
[0075] As described above, the system 100 is designed to list
documents which refer to specific products and optionally deliver
advertisements which are related to the specific products to users
that access these documents. Optionally, the documents are webpages
315 in websites which are referred herein as publishers.
Optionally, one or more webpages of each publisher are tagged with
a script, such as an HTML script, for example as shown at 316. The
script calls one of the advertisement servers 105, and/or the
mapping module 101, whenever a request to load the hosting webpage
is received.
[0076] Such a request is referred to herein as a page impression.
The call includes an identification of the sending webpage and/or
the publisher. Optionally, the call includes information about the
network user who initiated the process that yielded the page
impression, for example by clicking on a link to the related
webpage. The advertisement server 105 optionally hosts one or more
advertisements lists 318, each includes a list of advertisements,
or links thereto, each related to a specific product and associated
with one or more documents that refer to the specific product. In
such an embodiment the advertisements lists 318 are updated
according to the records of the list 104 which is stored in the
list DB 312. The advertisement server 105 matches the received call
with the records of the one or more advertisements lists 318. If a
match is found, the advertisement server 105 forwards the matched
advertisement and/or link to the calling publisher. If a match is
not found, the call is forwarded to the mapping module 101,
optionally via queue of calls 309 that allows the mapping module
101 to handle simultaneously calls it receives from a number of
advertisement servers 105.
[0077] Reference is now also made to FIGS. 6 and 7, which are
respectively a clean image 400 and an image with schematic
illustrations 401 of ranks and analyzed words, both of an exemplary
webpage, according to some embodiments of the present invention. As
described above, the mapping module 101 is designed for creating a
list of documents that refers to various products.
[0078] Optionally, when it receives a link to a new document, such
as a webpage, for example at shown at 400, it analyses the webpage
and maps it in the aforementioned list 104, according to the
analysis. Optionally, the list 104 is hosted in a separate list
database (DB) 312. Optionally, the list DB 312 is directly
connected to the advertisement servers in order to reduce latency
when updating the advertisements list 318, optionally as described
below.
[0079] Reference is now also made to FIG. 4, which is a schematic
illustration of the hierarchy 500 of the aforementioned dataset 500
that is reviewed for selecting an advertisement, according to an
exemplary embodiment of the present invention. In some embodiments
of the present invention, the dataset 500 is arranged in a
general-to-specific hierarchy that has several layers. Optionally,
the first layer 501 includes product manufacturer brands, such as
Nikon.TM. and Sony.TM. and/or server provider brands, such as
American on Line.TM. (AOL) or Sprint.TM. and the last layer 502 is
a layer of unique products, such as Vaio.TM. VGN-AR670 with a
Blu-ray Disc.TM. drive. Optionally, each unique product may be
accessed via a number of layers, for example the unique product
Nikon.TM. Powershot.TM. 270X with 8.0 Mega pixels is positioned
four layers below the first layer 501. The dataset 500 allows
associating between one or more advertisements and one or more
nodes or a sub-trees in the hierarchy 500. In such a manner, a
targeted advertisement that includes an offer for a specific
product, such as a unique model may be associated with a node in
the last layer 502 and an advertisement for a specific product,
such as an offer to any of number of models, such as all the
Vaio.TM. family products or all the Powershot.TM. family products
can be associated with a node in one of the first layers. It should
be noted that an advertisement that is targeted to a specific model
is assumed to be more effective, inter alia, because it can
highlight advantages, such as performance, reputation, and price,
of the specific model. It should be noted that the advertisements
are related to the specific products and may include an offer or a
promotion to a specific product, a product with properties and/or
market that is similar to the properties and/or the market of the
specific product, and accessories or complementary products to the
specific product. For example, if the product is a movie, the
advertisement may be for accessories such as cups, shirts, and or
books, which are related to the movie. In another example, the
specific product is a gadget, such as an iPod.TM. of Apple.TM. and
the advertisement is to another portable media player, such as
Sansa.TM. of Sundisk.TM.
[0080] As described above, when a call is received from a new
webpage, the server 105 forwards it to the queue 309 that is
connected to the mapping module 101. The call comprises an
identifier of the related document. The identifier allows the
mapping module to access, analyze, and list the related
document.
[0081] Optionally, the call is send automatically every period. In
such an embodiment, and as used here, the new webpage is also a
webpage that has been already mapped and sent to be remapped.
[0082] As depicted in FIG. 5, the mapping module 101 optionally
comprises a controller 300 that manages a grabber 308, an analyzer
307, a mediator 206, and an application program interface (API) to
connect between the system 100 and one or more advertiser modules
304 which allow advertisers to add advertisements, as shown at
202.
[0083] The grabber 308 is designed for grabbing information that
allows the analyzer 307 to analyze and list the related document.
Optionally, the related document is a webpage and the grabber 308
extracts the textual content therefrom. Optionally, the new webpage
includes textual content. Optionally, the grabber 308 is connected
to an optical character recognition (OCR) sub-module (not shown)
for identifying characters from a pixilated graphic file and
converting them into a regular text file. In such a manner, graphic
files can be mapped even if they do not include computer readable
textual content.
[0084] Now, in order to list the new webpage in the list DB 312,
the analyzer 307 analyzes the content thereof. Optionally, the
analysis is divided to several phases. Optionally, the analyzer 307
uses the dataset 500, which is also referred to herein as a model
or a hierarchical data model, and a dictionary 320 that consists a
plurality of product descriptions, some associated with one or more
related advertisements.
[0085] First, one or more anchor nodes from the dataset 500 are
identified in the new webpage. As used herein an anchor node means
a manufacturer, a brand, a trademark.TM., a model, and/or a
property which is related to a specific product and documented in a
node of the dataset 500. Optionally, these anchor nodes are
searched by reviewing a layer by layer. Optionally, in order to
limit the computational complexity of the search, the number of
layers which are matched is limited. For identifying each one of
the anchor nodes, the nodes of the first layer 501 are reviewed for
identifying a match between the content of the new webpage and a
word or a phrase that is defined in one of the nodes. If no match
is found, a similar match is searched for in the nodes of the
second layer, third layer, and so on and so forth. For example, in
the exemplary webpage that is shown at FIG. 7, anchor nodes have
been found only in one of the lowest layers, a layer that specifies
the model numbers. For each anchor node, after a match is found,
the child nodes of the matched node are searched. Such a search is
iteratively repeated until the child nodes of a certain layer do
not include a reference that appears in the new webpage. In such a
manner, the most specific product that is referred to in the new
webpage and documented in the dataset 500 is identified. For
example, when the dataset in FIG. 4 is searched, if the word
Sony.TM. is found in the new webpage, the brands Vaio.TM.,
Playstation.TM., Cyber-Shot.TM., and Walkman.TM. are searched. If
Vaio.TM. is found in the new webpage, the family brands AR, TZ, NR,
and the like are searched, and so on and so forth.
[0086] Optionally, each node is associated with a list of synonyms
and/or identifying information that match the brand, model, or
property it represents. Such identifying information, in structured
and/or unstructured text, may include unstructured text that has
been identified by analysts or learning machines that identify
recurring patterns of text in relation to a specific product or
specific product features.
[0087] Optionally, the mediator 306 receives the anchor nodes and
matches an advertisement thereto, optionally according to the
aforementioned associations. Optionally, a heuristics module 311 is
used to decide which advertisement to serve.
[0088] Optionally, the mediator 306 matches a number of
advertisements to each anchor node it receives. In such a manner,
an indication to an advertisement that includes an offer to
purchase the product that is related to the anchor node may be sent
together with an advertisement to a product with properties and/or
a market that is similar to the properties and/or the market of the
related product, an indication to an advertisement for accessories
for or complementary products to the related product, and/or an
indication to an advertisement for services which are related to
the specific product, such as upgrade services and the like. For
example, if the anchor node is Sony.TM. Vaio.TM. from the family
brands AR, two or more of the following advertisements may be
associated with the new webpage: an indication to an offer to
purchase Sony.TM. Vaio.TM. from the family brands AR, an indication
to an offer to purchase accessories for Sony.TM. Vaio.TM., an
indication to an offer to purchase a software such as an antivirus
and/or firewall, an indication to an offer to purchase an insurance
for a laptop, an indication to an advertisement to a website that
focus on laptops.
[0089] Optionally, if two or more anchor nodes are identified, two
different advertisements are presented. Optionally, if two or more
anchor nodes are identified, a combined advertisement that compares
between the two or more different specific products which are
related to different anchor nodes the and/or highlights the
advantages of one of the products in the light of the other are
delivered to the network user that access the new webpage.
Optionally, if the word "compare" or any synonym thereof appears in
the document the advertisement compares between the two or more
different specific products which are related to different anchor
nodes. Optionally, if the words "better", "prefer", or any synonym
thereof appear in the document, the advertisement highlights the
advantages of one or more products over the others. Optionally the
preferability of a certain product is affected by the weight that
is given to related advertisements, optionally as described
below
[0090] If the reference in the new document refers only to an
anchor node that is not associated with a certain advertisement,
such an association is searched for in the child nodes of the
anchor node. For example, the reference in the new document is to
Sony.TM., however the node, which is related to Sony.TM., for
example as shown in FIG. 4, does not associate with any specific
advertisement, an association to an advertisement is searched in
the child nodes Vaio.TM., Playstation.TM., Cyber-Shot.TM., and
Walkman.TM. are searched. If these nodes are not associated with
any specific advertisement, the child nodes thereof are searched,
and so on and so forth.
[0091] Optionally, if the anchor node is not associated with a
certain advertisement, such an association is searched for in all
the child nodes of the anchor node. In such a manner, all the child
node advertisements which are related to the anchor node are found.
In such a manner, if the anchor node is Sony.TM., all the
advertisements which are related to Sony.TM. products are found.
Optionally, each one of the child node advertisements is weighted.
Optionally, the weighting allows the system 100 to associate the
most suitable and/or profitable advertisements with the new
document by selecting the one or more advertisements with the
highest weight. Optionally, the weight for each advertisement is
given on the basis of the estimated and/or actual return of
investment, the estimated and/or actual popularity of the
advertised products, the number of documents in which it already
been posted, the suitability of the advertisement to the
characteristics of the new documents, such as the route, the type,
the technical characteristics, and/or the business model thereof.
Optionally, the weight is dynamically updated according to
information which is accumulated thereabout. Such information may
include the number of visitors that have reacted to the
advertisement and the like. Optionally, the weight is calculated
according to the relation between the document and/or the publisher
thereof to the advertised product.
[0092] Optionally, one or more of the advertisements are associated
with a number of anchor nodes. In such a manner, an advertisement
to a product that is similar to a product which is referred to in
the new document is selected.
[0093] As described above, each node may be connected to one or
more advertisements. These advertisements, which are related to the
specific product that is referred to in the new webpage, are
selected as matched advertisements, as shown at 152. The match
and/or the document are optionally mapped in the list DB 312.
Optionally, one or more of the advertisements lists 318 are also
updated. Each one of these updates allows the delivering of the one
or more matched advertisements or indication thereto, as shown at
153, to be displayed to a network user that accesses and/or
requests to access the unmapped document.
[0094] In one embodiment of the present invention, the
advertisement is selected and/or adjusted according to additional
information which is found in the new webpage. Optionally, after
one or more anchor nodes have been identified, a set of
categorizing attributes are searched in the new webpage. As used
herein a categorizing attribute means a characteristic of the
product, a characteristic of the service, a price, a condition, for
example, new, used, and/or refurbished, etc. In such an embodiment,
each categorizing attribute may be used for generating and/or
associating an advertisement that has a promotional content that is
aligned with the textual content of the new webpage. For example,
if the categorizing attributes "17 screen" is identified, for
example as shown at 404, an advertisement that highlights the
advantages of a large screen may be created and/or presented, if
the categorizing attribute "$1000" is identified, for example as
shown at 405, an advertisement that highlights the advantages of
the price of the product may be created and/or presented.
[0095] As commonly known, a placement of an advertisement incurs
costs. Thus, it is important to maximize the utility of an
advertisement, inter alia, by associating it with the webpages that
has the highest relevancy thereto. Optionally, each mapped document
is tagged with a relevancy rank for one or more referred products.
In such a manner, an advertisement to a specific product can be
associated with documents that have a related relevancy rank above
a certain threshold. In such a manner, optionally, only document
with a high enough relevancy rank are selected as a platform for
advertising a specific product. It should be noted that if the
relevancy rank is not high enough for a specific model, it may be
high enough for a family of products or to a related product. For
example, if a relevancy rank is not high enough for an anchor node
that defines a model, it may be high enough for an advertisement
that is associated with one or the parent nodes, for example the
manufacturer node or the product family node. Optionally, if the
higher node is not associated with a specific advertisement, one of
its child nodes which is associated with an advertisement that may
be selected. In such a manner, a related product is selected to be
displayed even though a specific model that the system 100 have an
advertisement for is not referred to in the document.
[0096] Such relevancy ranking may be based on characteristics such
as, the quality of the match between the product and the content of
the document, the favorability of the sentiment regarding the
product presented in the document, the type of the document, and/or
the relevant reputation of a publisher, such as a website, that is
associated with the document. For example, a webpage in which
interest is expressed in purchasing a particular product might be
ranked higher than one that merely makes reference to the
product.
[0097] Optionally, the quality of the match is evaluated according
to the location and/or the incidence of the anchor node in the
ranked webpage. For example, as shown at FIG. 7, the presence of
the anchor node in the title adds 1 to the relevancy rank, a
presence of the anchor node in the first paragraph adds 0.9 to the
relevancy rank, and a presence of the anchor node in the other
paragraphs adds 0.8 to the relevancy rank. Optionally, the quality
is evaluated using known methods such as the term frequency inverse
document frequency (tf-idf) weight; see Salton, G, et al. 1983
Introduction to modern information retrieval, McGraw-Hill, ISBN
0070544840; Salton, G, et al. 1983 Extended Boolean information
retrieval, Commun, ACM 26, 1022-1036; and Salton, G, et al., 1988
Term-weighting approaches in automatic text retrieval. Information
Processing & Management 24(5): 513-523, which are incorporated
herein by reference.
[0098] Optionally, the favorability of the sentiment regarding the
product is evaluated according to the proximity of positive or
negative adjective and/or verbs to the anchor nodes and/or one of
the parent nodes thereof. For example, as shown at FIG. 4, the
proximity of the positive verbs "like" and "leaning towards"
increases the relevancy ranking of the webpage in respectively 1.7
and 0.8.
[0099] As described above, the relevancy ranking may be affected by
the type of the document. Optionally, the type is determined
according to its file extension.
[0100] As described above, the relevancy ranking may be affected by
publisher of the document. As commonly known, different publishers
may be more suitable than others with regard to the credibility of
reference to certain products in their documents. As used herein
suitable means positively reputed among the network users that
access their pages. For example, a forum, which is related to
technical analysis of gadgets, may be more suitable for evaluating
the purchase of a new Smartphone than a forum for technophobic
people. Optionally, the relevancy rank is evaluated according to
the relation between the related publisher and the type of the
product, which is optionally induced from one of the layer in the
list. When evaluating the relevancy ranking of the webpage with
regard to a specific product, the product record thereof is matched
with the specific product and/or the products which are defined in
parent nodes. In such an embodiment, one or more of the webpages
are associated with product records that describe products that
they are positively and/or negatively reputed for. Each product in
the product records is ranked, either positively and/or negatively.
Such a rank may be determined by a judgment that is uploaded by the
operator of the system 100 and/or by a statistical analysis, which
is optionally performed automatically, of the click-through rates
and/or of the return of investment (ROI) of previous, optionally
related, advertisements.
[0101] After the new webpage has been analyzed, matched with one or
more related products according to one or more anchor nodes, and
ranked for each one of the related products, one or more
advertisements may be associated therewith, optionally in real
time. The association, which is optionally performed by sending an
indication of the one or more advertisements, allows the
presentation of the one or more advertisements to users that access
the new webpage, for example as shown at 410.
[0102] Optionally, the mediator 306 is designed to receive
advertisements from the advertisers 304 via the API 305 and to
match them with the analyzed, optionally ranked, documents.
Optionally, the new advertisements are associated with one or more
nodes in the dataset. Each associated node represents a product, a
family of products, and/or a related product or a family of related
products which are promoted and/or advertised in the related
advertisement. As used herein a related product means a product
with properties and/or market that is similar to the properties
and/or the market of the product in the node, accessories products
or complementary products which are related to the product in the
node. For example, an advertisement to an Acer.TM. portable
computer, that has a specification, a market, and/or a price of as
Vaio.TM. VGN-AR670 with a Blu-ray Disc.TM. drive associated with
the node that represents the Vaio.TM. VGN-AR670 with a Blu-ray
Disc.TM. drive 503. In such a manner, an advertisement to the
aforementioned Acer.TM. model will be presented to people that
access a forum that referred to the Vaio.TM. VGN-AR670 with a
Blu-ray Disc.TM. drive, allowing them to receive information about
comparable product.
[0103] Optionally, the mediator 306 receives a value representing
the budget for each advertisement or for a group of advertisements
and identifies the documents with the highest relevancy ranking for
the advertised products. In such an embodiment, each one of the
mapped documents is associated with a value that defines the
advertising cost of associating an advertisement therewith. As used
herein associating an advertisement means adding an advertisement
to the document, linking to an advertisement from the document, and
integrating an indirect advertising in the document.
[0104] Optionally, the mediator 306 selects a group of documents,
referred herein as an advertising bucket, optionally according to
the related budget, and associates the advertisement with its
members. Optionally, the advertising bucket is assembled to
generate the highest ROI. Optionally, the advertising bucket is
assembled according to one or more of the business model of the
publisher of the documents, an historical data of each publisher
and/or document, the relevancy of each publisher and/or document,
the geographic distribution of each publisher and/or document,
demographic factors of each publisher and/or document, the content
provided by the publisher and/or presented in the document, the
user behavior, etc. As used herein business model means methods of
calculating the charge for advertisements being loaded, such as
cost per 1,000 (CPM), cost per click (CPC), cost per action (CPA),
cost per lead (CPL), and/or the cost per sale (CPS).
[0105] Optionally, the mediator 306 is designed to select an
advertisement per user and/or a group of users. In such an
embodiment, the mediator 306 further receives a user profile the
comprises information such as geographical information, which is
optionally acquired known geolocation methods, related access
history, related purchase history, and subscriber information which
may be received from the publisher of the new document. For
example, the mediator 306 may use the geographical information to
select an advertisement that is related to the region of the IP
address or to automatically adjust the selected advertisement. For
clarity, such geographical information may affect the selection of
product to advertise. Optionally, the weight of each advertisement
is changed according to the geographical information if the
user.
[0106] It is expected that during the life of a patent maturing
from this application many relevant systems and methods will be
developed and the scope of the term network, network user, dataset,
database, node, and WWW are intended to include all such new
technologies a priori.
[0107] As used herein the term "about" refers to .+-.10%.
[0108] The terms "comprises", "comprising", "includes",
"including", "having" and their conjugates mean "including but not
limited to".
[0109] The term "consisting of means "including and limited
to".
[0110] The term "consisting essentially of" means that the
composition, method or structure may include additional
ingredients, steps and/or parts, but only if the additional
ingredients, steps and/or parts do not materially alter the basic
and novel characteristics of the claimed composition, method or
structure.
[0111] As used herein, the singular form "a", "an" and "the"
include plural references unless the context clearly dictates
otherwise. For example, the term "a compound" or "at least one
compound" may include a plurality of compounds, including mixtures
thereof.
[0112] Throughout this application, various embodiments of this
invention may be presented in a range format. It should be
understood that the description in range format is merely for
convenience and brevity and should not be construed as an
inflexible limitation on the scope of the invention. Accordingly,
the description of a range should be considered to have
specifically disclosed all the possible sub-ranges as well as
individual numerical values within that range. For example,
description of a range such as from 1 to 6 should be considered to
have specifically disclosed sub-ranges such as from 1 to 3, from 1
to 4, from 1 to 5, from 2 to 4, from 2 to 6, from 3 to 6 etc., as
well as individual numbers within that range, for example, 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, and 6. This applies regardless of the breadth of the
range.
[0113] Whenever a numerical range is indicated herein, it is
intended to include any cited numeral (fractional or integral)
within the indicated range. The phrases "ranging/ranges between" a
first indicate number and a second indicate number and
"ranging/ranges from" a first indicate number "to" a second
indicate number are used herein interchangeably and are intended to
include the first and second indicated numbers and all the
fractional and integral numerals therebetween.
[0114] It is appreciated that certain features of the invention,
which are, for clarity, described in the context of separate
embodiments, may also be provided in combination in a single
embodiment. Conversely, various features of the invention, which
are, for brevity, described in the context of a single embodiment,
may also be provided separately or in any suitable subcombination
or as suitable in any other described embodiment of the invention.
Certain features described in the context of various embodiments
are not to be considered essential features of those embodiments,
unless the embodiment is inoperative without those elements.
[0115] Although the invention has been described in conjunction
with specific embodiments thereof, it is evident that many
alternatives, modifications and variations will be apparent to
those skilled in the art. Accordingly, it is intended to embrace
all such alternatives, modifications and variations that fall
within the spirit and broad scope of the appended claims.
[0116] All publications, patents and patent applications mentioned
in this specification are herein incorporated in their entirety by
reference into the specification, to the same extent as if each
individual publication, patent or patent application was
specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated herein
by reference. In addition, citation or identification of any
reference in this application shall not be construed as an
admission that such reference is available as prior art to the
present invention. To the extent that section headings are used,
they should not be construed as necessarily limiting.
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