U.S. patent application number 13/196643 was filed with the patent office on 2011-11-24 for systems and methods for providing advertising in a feed of content.
This patent application is currently assigned to MOREOVER ACQUISITION CORPORATION. Invention is credited to Angus G.K. Bankes, James E. Pitkow, Kenneth Buckley Smith.
Application Number | 20110288916 13/196643 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 36698068 |
Filed Date | 2011-11-24 |
United States Patent
Application |
20110288916 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Pitkow; James E. ; et
al. |
November 24, 2011 |
SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROVIDING ADVERTISING IN A FEED OF
CONTENT
Abstract
A system and method is described for Controlling the provision
of advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news content
that is delivered from a publisher to an end user, wherein the
system comprises: one or more advertisements which each possess a
unique identifier that has been attributed by the publisher; reader
software deployed in the system to analyse the delivered feed of
news content and the one or more advertisements, wherein the reader
software is adapted to ensure that any duplication of the one or
more advertisements is identified by reference to the unique
identifier of each advertisement; and wherein the reader software
controls the presentation of news content and a predefined number
of non-duplicate advertisements to the end user.
Inventors: |
Pitkow; James E.; (San
Francisco, CA) ; Bankes; Angus G.K.; (London, GB)
; Smith; Kenneth Buckley; (San Francisco, CA) |
Assignee: |
MOREOVER ACQUISITION
CORPORATION
Vienna
VA
|
Family ID: |
36698068 |
Appl. No.: |
13/196643 |
Filed: |
August 2, 2011 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
|
11043682 |
Jan 25, 2005 |
8001005 |
|
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13196643 |
|
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Current U.S.
Class: |
705/14.4 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q 30/02 20130101;
G06Q 30/0264 20130101; G06Q 30/0277 20130101; G06Q 30/0241
20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
705/14.4 |
International
Class: |
G06Q 30/00 20060101
G06Q030/00 |
Claims
1. A system for controlling the provision of advertising presented
to an end user in a feed of news content that is delivered from a
publisher to an end user, wherein the system comprises: one or more
advertisements which each possess a unique identifier that has been
attributed by the publisher; reader software deployed in the system
to analyse the delivered feed of news content and the one or more
advertisements, wherein the reader software is adapted to ensure
that any duplication of the one or more advertisements is
identified by reference to the unique identifier of each
advertisement; and wherein the reader software controls the
presentation of news content and a predefined number of
non-duplicate advertisements to the end user.
2. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with computer
readable instructions for controlling the provision of advertising
presented to an end user in a feed of news content that is
delivered from a publisher to the end user, wherein each
advertisement has an associated hyperlink, the computer readable
instructions comprising: code for receiving a hyperlink for each
advertisement from a advertisement publisher; code for receiving an
identify for each advertisement from the news content publisher;
code for replacing the hyperlink for each advertisement with the
identifier from the news content publisher for each advertisement;
code for analyzing the delivered feed of the news content and one
or more advertisements and using the identifier to identify
duplication of the one or more advertisements; and code for
presenting the end user with the news content and a number of
non-duplicate advertisements based on the identifier, wherein the
advertisement is presented based on the associated hyperlink
received for each advertisement.
3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, further
comprising code for attributing the identifier to each
advertisement.
4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein
the identifier is associated with an advertisement substantially
permanently.
5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein
the identifier is effective for a period of time determined by the
publisher.
6. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein
the identifier is a globally identifier for a type of
advertisement.
7. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein
the code for analyzing the delivered feed of news content and one
or more advertisements is performed on the end user's computer.
8. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein
the code for analyzing the delivered feed of news content and one
or more advertisements is performed on a host computer,
9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2,
including code for recognizing that new news content is available
with reference to a hyperlink associated with the news component
and identifying one or more advertisements with reference to the
identifier.
10. A computer implemented method of controlling the provision of
advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news content that
is delivered. from a host computer of a news content publisher to
an end user having an associated end user computer, wherein each
advertisement has an associated. hyperlink, the computer
implemented method comprising: receiving a hyperlink from a
publisher of advertisement content for each advertisement;
attributing a computer readable identifier to each advertisement,
wherein the identifier is attributed by the news content publisher;
replacing the hyperlink from the publisher of the advertisement
content with the identifier attributed from the news content
publisher; analyzing with either the end user computer or the host
computer, the delivered feed of news content and one or more
advertisements and reading the identifier of each advertisement
with a computer to ensure that any duplication of the one or more
advertisements is identified; and presenting the end user with the
news content and a predefined number of non-duplicate
advertisements.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein analyzing the delivered feed of
news content and one or more advertisements is performed on the end
user's computer.
12. The method of claim 10, wherein analyzing the delivered feed of
news content and one or more advertisements is performed on a host
computer.
Description
RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 11/043,682, filed Jan. 25, 2005, now U.S. Pat.
No. 8,001,005, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein as if
set out in full.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The present invention relates to systems and methods for
providing advertising in a feed of content to a user and,
particularly but not exclusively, the provision of contextual
advertising to users in a stream of content via a communication
network.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0003] The Internet is a vast computer network consisting of many
smaller networks that span the entire World. The Internet and the
number of users has grown rapidly in recent years. Indeed millions
of people per day connect to the Internet using both permanent and
dial up connections. The computers, or networks of computers,
connected to the Internet are referred to as "hosts", allow public
access to files, documents and data covering a vast array of
content such as information relating to current events, the
weather, financial matters, business matters, entertainment,
lifestyle issues, industrial matters, science, sports, society,
international affairs, technology, etc
[0004] The content on the Internet is made available to the public
through "servers". A server is a computer system running on an
Internet host that makes its contents available to the public. A
user may use their computer (typically a home personal computer or
Internet connected workstation, known as the "client") to request
that information contained on the server be distributed via the
Internet so that is may be displayed by the user's computer. The
server will distribute the requested contents to the client.
[0005] The World-Wide Web (Web) is a system for accessing
information on the Internet that allows a user to navigate the
Internet resources intuitively, without knowledge of specific
addresses of information content or other technical information.
The Web is made up of numerous Web "pages" that can be displayed by
a client's computer to the user, typically by the client computer
using a Web browser. The Internet servers provide the Web pages
from their location on the Web, known as their Web sites.
[0006] Companies which deal in the business of reporting news and
the like, such as newspapers and television channels and news
agencies generally, have realised the value of supplying
information via the Internet and have set up their own Web sites to
facilitate this dissemination.
[0007] Due to the success of this dissemination there are now a
multiplicity of Web sites providing online news and information
that may be of interest to a user.
[0008] With the continued expansion of online news Web sites, it
has become increasingly difficult for users to sift through the
vast array of information that is available in order to locate
information which is of particular interest to them.
[0009] Out of this disarray has risen a service which scours the
Web to obtain targeted information that is of interest to a user's
specific requirements. This targeted information is aggregated and
provided to the user in a feed. Such is the success of this model
of information delivery, it is becoming the most popular delivery
model of information to users of the Web. The principal benefit of
this aggregated model of delivery being that it saves the user a
great deal of time compared to manually acquiring content from
individual Web sites.
[0010] Whilst this aggregation can be provided via payment methods
such as subscriptions or the like, some users are not in a position
where they can easily afford the expense, or may simply prefer not
to incur a great deal of expenditure in gathering information which
is of interest to them. In order to make such information
aggregation available without financial incumbency, the cost of
aggregating the information can be supported by providing the
aggregated information together with advertisements. The revenue
generated from the advertiser or advertising network in return for
the inclusion of their advertisement will subsidise the free, or
inexpensive, provision of the aggregated information.
[0011] To ensure that there are sufficient users of the free or
inexpensive aggregated information, it is preferable that the
amount of advertisements are controlled to ensure that the user
does not feel as though they are being spammed. "Spammed" is used
herein to mean an unacceptable amount of unsolicited advertisements
or the like.
[0012] To guard against a user feeling as though they are being
spammed, a user deploys software (reader software) which not only
displays the aggregated information in an acceptable form to the
user, but also prevents the user being faced with the same
information, be it news content or advertisement, every time
aggregated information is processed by the reader software.
[0013] Existing reader software has hitherto identified the
uniqueness of the content of a feed by analysing the hyperlink of
each component of the feed, be it news content or advertisements.
The drawback of this however is that the hyperlink of the news
contents and advertisements typically change on a differing
basis.
[0014] The term "hyperlink" as used herein is to be understood to
relate to any suitable means which allows an end user to
conveniently access a document which possesses the full details of
the component contained in the feed.
[0015] With news content, the hyperlink to each story or feature
etc. will generally remain static. The hyperlink may change during
the course of time but this will typically be in response to an
update of the story or feature and, as such, the end user may wish
to read this update. Therefore, hyperlinks provide a useful means
of identifying whether the news content has been seen by the reader
software previously, thus allowing the software to prevent repeated
displays of the same news content to the end user during periods of
a low flux of news content.
[0016] However, the use of hyperlinks as an identification means is
not suitable where advertisements are concerned. Typically
providers of advertisements will frequently change the hyperlink to
subvert the identification strategy employed by the reader software
and this can have several damaging implications.
[0017] Firstly, during periods of low flux of news content, the
reader software analyses the hyperlinks of the components of the
delivered feed and concludes that all of the news content been
displayed to the end user previously. However the software would
also identify that there was some new content in the form of the
advertisements. Hence, only the advertisements would be displayed
to the end user as being new. If this low flux of news content
continued, the display to the end user could eventually consist of
nothing but advertisements. Clearly this high level of
advertisements, or spamming, would not be satisfactory to the end
user.
[0018] Secondly, the constant changing of the advertisement's
hyperlink could result in the same advertisement being repeatedly
displayed to the end user. Indeed, in an extreme case, during a
situation of low flux of news content, as described above, it is
possible that the display to the user could be a series of
identical advertisements only being distinguishable from each other
by virtue of having different hyperlinks. Such a situation would
clearly be deeply unsatisfactory to the end user.
[0019] Thirdly, this situation can impair the contextual accuracy
of the advertisements.
[0020] Fourthly, advertising networks are often desirous of
changing the hyperlink in order to steer different people toward
different advertisements. Advertising networks operate
independently of the feeds discussed herein and, thus, are not
within the scope of the present invention. These advertising
networks investigate the use of advertisements by end users and
employ sophisticated techniques to determine whether an
advertisement is accessed, how deeply it is accessed and which
advertisements are accessed more than others. The changing of the
hyperlink affords the advertising network a greater degree of
sophistication when deploying their techniques.
[0021] Fifthly, advertising networks will also frequently change
the hyperlink to avoid fraudulent clicks, often referred to as
click fraud. Click fraud is when a business receives invalid clicks
on a paid advertisement listing by a competitor or individual
having no intention of using the service or purchasing the goods
under the advertisement. A click is invalid when the person making
the click does it for the sole purpose of costing the advertiser
money or financial harm. Click fraud may occur from competing
advertisers or simply individuals just wanting to harm or frustrate
the advertiser.
[0022] For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated
below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon
reading and understanding the present specification, there is a
need in the art for systems and methods which improve contextual
advertising within streams of content provided to end users.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0023] The present invention allows advertising to be included in
feeds of news content, wherein the advertisements are controlled in
a manner which renders them satisfactory from an end user's
perspective and also from the perspective of an advertiser and a
publisher.
[0024] According to one feature of the present invention there is
provided a system for controlling the provision of advertising
presented to an end user in a feed of news content that is
delivered from a publisher to an end user, wherein the system
comprises: one or more advertisements which each possess a unique
identifier that has been attributed by the publisher;
[0025] reader software deployed in the system to analyse the
delivered feed of news content and the one or more advertisements,
wherein the reader software is adapted to ensure that any
duplication of the one or more advertisements is identified by
reference to the unique identifier of each advertisement; and
[0026] wherein the reader software controls the presentation of
news content and a predefined number of non-duplicate
advertisements to the end user.
[0027] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a method of controlling the provision of
advertising presented to. an end user in a feed of news content
that is delivered from a publisher to an end user, the method
comprising the attribution by the publisher of a unique identifier
to each advertisement, reader software analysing the delivered feed
of news content and one or more advertisements and using the unique
identifier of the or each advertisement to ensure that any
duplication of the one or more advertisements is identified, the
reader software then allowing the end user to be presented with the
news content and a predefined number of non-duplicate
advertisements.
[0028] Unlike existing systems and methods which employ reader
software to identify the uniqueness of feed content by analysing
the hyperlink of each item, be it news content or advertisements,
the present invention determines the uniqueness of an advertisement
based on the analysis of a unique identifier attributed thereto. As
discussed above, the hyperlink of the news contents and
advertisements typically change on a differing basis. With news
content, the hyperlink to each story or feature etc. will generally
remain static. The hyperlink may change during the course of time
but this will typically be in response to an update of the story or
feature and, as such, the end user may wish to read this update. By
ensuring that the reader software only identifies each
advertisement with reference to the unique identifier attributed to
it, the permanent nature of the unique identifier ensures that the
reader software may recognise whether the advertisement has been
displayed to the end user previously or not, regardless of whether
its hyperlink has changed.
[0029] The publisher may attribute any suitable unique identifier
to an advertisement, the identifier being any suitable, string,
coding, tag or other means. Thereafter, any other advertisement
having an identical or substantially identical content, will be
attributed the same unique identifier. The identifier may be
associated with an advertisement substantially permanently.
Alternatively, the identifier may only be effective for a period of
time to be determined by the publisher. Regardless, the identifier
should be associated with the advertisement for a sufficient period
of time consistent with the typical life span of an advertisement
in order to guard against an end user being presented with an
identical or substantially identical advertisement.
[0030] One suitable form of unique identifier is a GUID. A GUID
(Globally Unique IDentifier) is a string adapted to uniquely
identify the article to which it is attributed. The GUID may,
amongst other characteristics, be a 128-bit generated number,
and/or contain a date string, and/or a straight number calculated
in whole or in part from the date or date string, and/or have a
"isPermaLink" facet with a value of "true" or "false" associated
therewith.
[0031] The system and method of the present invention may be used
to provide the end user with contextual advertising. In order to
deliver a contextual advertisement, the news content is analysed
and a suitably contextually related advertisement or advertisements
are correlated and associated with the news content in the feed.
The publisher may be responsible for ensuring the contextual nature
of the advertisement. Alternatively, an advertiser or advertising
network or publisher or other third party may provide the
advertisements and be responsible for ensuring the contextual
nature thereof.
[0032] Reader software may be deployed to be operative on the
client computer. Alternatively, the reader software may be deployed
to be operative on the host computer or any system therein, e.g.
proxy server, cache, etc.
[0033] It is to be understood that a feed of news content should be
interpreted to mean a discrete quantity of information. Within the
context of the present invention, the feed of news content may
contain at least one piece of news content and/or at least one
advertisement. Alternatively the feed of news content may contain
at least one piece of news content and at least one advertisement.
As a further alternative, the feed of news content may contain at
least one piece of news content or at least one advertisement.
[0034] The feed may by a stream of RSS content. RSS is used herein
to relate to Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Other
content streams which the present invention may also be applicable
including, but not limited to, streams of XML (Extensible Markup
Language) content, XSL (Extensible Style Language) content, SGML
(Standard Generalized Markup Language) content, video content,
audio content, etc.
[0035] The reader software may be configured to recognise the
identity of news content with reference to the hyperlink of each
component of the news content, and where duplications exist, these
are not presented to the user. Simultaneously, or substantially
simultaneously, with this recognition, the reader software may also
be configured to identify advertisement(s) with reference to the
unique identifier attributed thereto.
[0036] Furthermore, the reader software may be configured to
simultaneously, or substantially simultaneously, recognise the
identity of all components in the feed of news content with
reference to both the hyperlink and unique identifier. In this
arrangement, only the advertisements will possess a unique
identifier and, where present, this will be used as the default
means by which the reader software will determine whether the
advertisement is a duplicate of what has been displayed to the end
user previously.
[0037] In a further arrangement, the reader software may be adapted
to use the unique identifier as a guide means for the content
presented to the end user. In one envisaged embodiment, the reader
software could possess a template through which it presents the
feed content to the end user. For example, the template may be
disposed with 10 positions that can each be filled with feed
content. This template may be arranged such that positions 1 and
3-10 are available for news content, and position 2 may only be
filled with content possessing a unique identifier. Therefore, in
this arrangement, after the software has identified whether the
content of the feed represents duplicate matter insofar as it has
been presented to the end user previously, news content would be
displayed in template positions 1, 3-10 and an advertisement would
be displayed in position 2. Only one advertisement could be
displayed by this template and only in position 2 as the
advertisement would be the only component of the feed to possess a
unique identifier.
[0038] It is to be understood that the use of the term "template"
is meant is a non-limiting sense and is intended to cover the
general presentation of the feed content to the end user.
[0039] The reader software may be RSS reader software. RSS 2.0
software may be utilised in the reader software of the present
invention.
[0040] The feed of news content may be delivered automatically from
a publisher to an end user, via the reader software. Alternatively
the reader software may routinely call for a feed of news content
from the publisher. The automatic delivery or the routine call may
have any varying time span between each delivery or call.
[0041] The end user may impart a set of parameters they wish to be
imposed on the feed of news content into the reader software prior
to receiving a feed of news content in order to suitably
characterise the nature of the information contained within the
feed. For instance, if the end user is particularly interested in
current affairs information, this could be. the imparted parameters
such that only news content featuring information on current
affairs will be presented to the end user.
[0042] The end user may impart the set of parameters they wish to
be imposed on the feed of news content directly with the publisher
prior to receiving a feed of news content.
[0043] It is to be understood that news content should be
interpreted to mean any form of information whether news related or
not such as, but not limited to, information relating to: current
events, weather, financial matters, stock prices, business matters,
entertainment, lifestyle issues, product information, travel
details, resumes, events, auctions, industrial matters, the
Internet, science, sports, society, international affairs,
technology, etc. It should also be understood that the
[0044] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a system for controlling the provision of
advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news content that
is automatically delivered from a publisher to an end user, wherein
the system comprises:
[0045] one or more advertisements which each possess a unique
identifier that has been attributed by the publisher;
[0046] reader software deployed in the system to analyse the
automatically delivered feed of news content and the one or more
advertisements, wherein the reader software is adapted to ensure
that any duplication of the one or more advertisements is
identified by reference to the unique identifier of each
advertisement; and
[0047] wherein the reader software controls the presentation of
news content and a predefined number of non-duplicate
advertisements to the end user.
[0048] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a method of controlling the provision of
advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news content that
is automatically delivered from a publisher to an end user, the
method comprising the attribution by the publisher of a unique
identifier to each advertisement, reader software analysing the
delivered feed of news content and one or more advertisements and
using the unique identifier of the or each advertisement to ensure
that any duplication of the one or more advertisements is
identified, the reader software then allowing the end user to be
presented with the news content and a predefined number of
non-duplicate advertisements.
[0049] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a system for controlling the provision of
contextual advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news
content that is automatically delivered from a publisher to an end
user, wherein the system comprises:
[0050] one or more advertisements which each possess a unique
identifier that has been attributed by the publisher;
[0051] reader software deployed in the system to analyse the
automatically delivered feed of news content and the one or more
advertisements, wherein the reader software is adapted to ensure
that any duplication of the one or more advertisements is
identified by reference to the unique identifier of each
advertisement; and
[0052] wherein the reader software controls the presentation of
news content and a predefined number of non-duplicate contextual
advertisements to the end user.
[0053] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a method of controlling the provision of
contextual advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news
content that is automatically delivered from a publisher to an end
user, the method comprising the attribution by the publisher of a
unique identifier to each advertisement, reader software analysing
the delivered feed of news content and one or more advertisements
and using the unique identifier of the or each advertisement to
ensure that any duplication of the one or more advertisements is
identified, the reader software then allowing the end user to be
presented with the news content and a predefined number of
non-duplicate contextual advertisements.
[0054] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a system for controlling the provision of
contextual advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news
content that is automatically delivered from a publisher to an end
user, wherein the system comprises:
[0055] one or more advertisements which each possess a unique
identifier that has been attributed by the publisher;
[0056] reader software deployed in the system to analyse the
automatically delivered feed of news content and the one or more
advertisements, wherein the reader software is adapted to ensure
that any duplication of the one or more advertisements is
identified and removed by reference to the unique identifier of
each advertisement; and
[0057] wherein the reader software controls the presentation of
news content and a predefined number of non-duplicate contextual
advertisements to the end user.
[0058] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a method of controlling the provision of
contextual advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news
content that is automatically delivered from a publisher to an end
user, the method comprising the attribution by the publisher of a
unique identifier to each advertisement, reader software analysing
the delivered feed of news content and one or more advertisements
and using the unique identifier of the or each advertisement to
ensure that any duplication of the one or more advertisements is
identified and removed, the reader software then allowing the end
user to be presented with the news content and a predefined number
of non-duplicate contextual advertisements.
[0059] With the above described features of the present invention
it is envisaged that the publisher will provide the attribution of
the unique identifier to the or each advertisement. However, as
described below, the present invention also envisages an
alternative attribution of the unique identifier.
[0060] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a system for controlling the provision of
advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news content that
is delivered from a publisher to an end user, wherein the system
comprises: one or more advertisements which each possess a unique
identifier that has been attributed by a content supplier;
[0061] reader software deployed in the system to analyse the
delivered feed of news content and the one or more advertisements,
wherein the reader software is adapted to ensure that any
duplication of the one or more advertisements is identified by
reference to the unique identifier of each advertisement; and
[0062] wherein the reader software controls the presentation of
news content and a predefined number of non-duplicate
advertisements to the end user.
[0063] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a method of controlling the provision of
advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news content that
is delivered from a publisher to an end user, the method comprising
the attribution by a content supplier of a unique identifier to
each advertisement, reader software analysing the delivered feed of
news content and one or more advertisements and using the unique
identifier of the or each advertisement to ensure that any
duplication of the one or more advertisements is identified, the
reader software then allowing the end user to be presented with the
news content and a predefined number of non-duplicate
advertisements.
[0064] The term "content provider" is used herein to refer to the
providers of the news content itself. Whilst the publisher
searches, collects and collates the news content, it is the content
provider whom publishes the content in the first instance. The
present invention further envisages that the content provider may
additionally provide the or each advertisement, the
advertisement(s) being subsequently presented to the end user via
the publisher and reader software. In this instance, the content
provider may also be responsible for ensuring the contextual nature
of the advertisements.
[0065] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a system for controlling the provision of
advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news content that
is delivered from a publisher to an end user, the system
comprising:
[0066] analysing means that are configured to allow a publisher
and/or an advertiser and/or a third party to analyse the feed of
news content;
[0067] the analysing means also being configured to recall the news
content supplied to reader software; wherein the analysing means is
further configured to produce a feed of news content which has not
been previously supplied to the reader software; and
[0068] wherein the publisher and/or advertiser and/or third party
introduces at least one advertisement to said feed of content
according to a predefined routine.
[0069] According to a further feature of the present invention
there is provided a method for controlling the provision of
advertising presented to an end user in a feed of news content that
is delivered from a publisher to an end user, the method
comprising:
[0070] the use of analysing means to allow a publisher and/or an
advertiser and/or a third party to analyse a feed of news
content;
[0071] use of the analysing means to recall the news content
supplied to reader software previously; further use of the
analysing means to produce a feed of news content which has not
been previously supplied to the reader software; and
[0072] the introduction of at least one advertisement to said feed
of content according to a predefined routine by the publisher
and/or an advertiser and/or a third party.
[0073] Preferably the analysing means interrogates the feed of news
content to uniquely identify the components thereof. The analysing
means may interrogate the feed of news content with reference to a
unique identifier. One suitable form of unique identifier is a
GUID.
[0074] In order that the present invention can be more readily
understood a specific embodiment thereof will be described in
detail by way of example. The foregoing and other features,
utilities and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the
following more particular description of a preferred embodiment of
the invention as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0075] The prior art most broadly includes contextual advertising,
where the news content is analysed and a relevant advertisement is
displayed based upon the nature of the content. The contextual
advertising business solutions are geared at matching advertising
to static pages of news content. These contextual advertising
business solutions also work with hosted RSS reader services, i.e.
a service that displays a page each time the user wants to view a
feed. Such a hosted RSS service is equivalent to a static page of
content. Providers of hosted RSS services do not face the
challenges of presenting advertising to users via a stream of
content.
[0076] In order to understand the solution of the present invention
the current state of RSS reader software and advertising will be
described. End users can read or subscribe to a RSS feed by either
(a) adding the feed to an online hosted service that performs the
services of RSS reader software, or (b) access the RSS feed via a
piece of software called RSS reader software.
[0077] In case (a), once the feed has been added to the list of
feeds being read by the end user, the online service will retrieve
the RSS news content for the publisher site and this will be
displayed to that end user. In this case, if the service wants to
control the number of advertisement places displayed to the end
user, they can easily insert a unique, contextually matched
advertisement into the displayed content. In other words, this is
broadly equivalent to displaying an HTML page with contextual
advertisements. In this scenario, the publisher can easily control
the number of advertisements displayed to each end user as well as
ensure that each end user gets a uniquely generated hyperlink for
each advertisement, minimising the potential of fraud. However,
this does not enable the publisher to control the insertion of
advertising into a stream of content.
[0078] In case (b), and according to the present invention, once
the feed has been added to the list of feeds being read by the end
user, the reader software will automatically check for updates to
the RSS feed on a periodic basis, typically in the range of once
every 15 minutes to once every 3 hours. When the reader software
checks for an update, it requests the latest x number of articles
from the publisher, regardless of whether the reader software has
already downloaded the content. In the event that there is content
(headline links in this case) that has already been presented to
the user, the reader software does not redisplay the duplicated
content. The test that the reader software typically does is to
check the hyperlink to the content returned in the RSS feed. If the
hyperlinks for two components in the RSS feed are the same, the
latest retrieved item is considered a duplicate and not presented
to the user
[0079] The easiest method of inserting advertisements into RSS feed
is to do just that. Each time a call is made to the publisher for
news content, the publisher inserts an advertisement as a new RSS
component into the feed. Whilst this may appear to solve the
problem, it creates an excessive amount of advertising displayed to
the end user. The reason for this excessive amount of advertising
is set out below:
TABLE-US-00001 1) User A calls
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/americas/default.stm to get BBC's Americas News Feed at 3:00
GMT 2) BBC returns the following RSS feed (with several items
removed) <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <rss
version="0.91"><channel> <title>BBC News | Americas
| World Edition</title>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/americas/default.stm</link> <description>Updated
every minute of every day - FOR PERSONAL USE
ONLY</description> <language>en-gb</language>
<lastBuildDate>Wed, 22 Sep 04 20:31:25
GMT</lastBuildDate> <copyright>Copyright: (C) British
Broadcasting Corporation,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3281849.stm</copyright>
<docs>http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/</docs>
<image> <title>BBC News</title>
<url>http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/bbc_news_120x60.gif
</url> <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk</link>
</image> <item> <title>ADV: BUY THIS
NOW</title> <description> WE HAVE WHAT YOU NEED< BUY
IT NOW</description>
<link>http://www.advertising_network.com/4000.html</link><-
/item> <item> <title>Cat Stevens sparks US
alert</title> <description>Yusuf Islam, the singer
formerly known as Cat Stevens, is sent back to London after being
refused entry to the US.</description>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/americas/3678694.stm</link> </item> <item>
<title>Nato agrees to expand Iraq role</title>
<description>The Nato alliance agrees to play a major role in
training Iraqi security forces, a spokesman
says.</description>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/europe/3680504.stm</link> </item>
</channel> </rss> 3) User A calls
http://news.bbc.co.uk/ao/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/americas/default.stm at 3:15 GMT 4) Despite it not publishing
any new articles, the BBC returns the following RSS feed (several
items removed): <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<rss version="0.91"><channel> <title>BBC News |
Americas | World Edition</title>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/- /2
hi/americas/default.stm</link> <description>Updated
every minute of every day - FOR PERSONAL USE
ONLY</description> <language>en-gb</language>
<lastBuildDate>Wed, 22 Sep 04 20:31:25
GMT</lastBuildDate> <copyright>Copyright: (C) British
Broadcasting Corporation,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3281849.stm</copyright>
<docs>http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/</docs>
<image> <title>BBC News</title>
<url>http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/bbc_news_120x60.gif</u-
rl <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk</link> </image>
<item> <title>ADV: BUY NIKE NOW</title>
<description> BUY NIKE NOW</description>
<link>http://www.advertising_network.com/4001.html</link>
</item> <item> <title>Cat Stevens sparks US
alert</title> <description>Yusuf Islam, the singer
formerly known as Cat Stevens, is sent back to London after being
refused entry to the US.</description>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/americas/3678694.stm</link> </item> <item>
<title>Nato agrees to expand Iraq role</title>
<description>The Nato alliance agrees to play a major role in
training Iraqi security forces, a spokesman
says.</description>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/europe/3680504.stm</link> </item>
</channel> </rss>
[0080] Since the deployed reader software determines if items are
duplicates by checking to see if the hyperlinks are the same, it
will conclude the two advertisements are different and display them
both. Given the temporal nature of news, reader software tends to
sort articles by time and, as such, the top two articles presented
to the end user will now be advertisements. The "stacking" of
advertisements will continue until the BBC issues a new news
article.
[0081] This method of delivering advertisements has several
drawbacks. Firstly, it does not allow the publisher to control how
many advertisements are displayed to the end user, the number of
advertisements displayed is a function of the number of
non-advertisements published and the frequency of call for the RSS
feed by the end user.
[0082] Secondly, it creates excessive advertisements by the
publisher during periods of low flux of news, which is an
undesirable experience for the end user.
[0083] An alternative solution to the problem is for the publisher
to use the same hyperlink for all advertisements and change the
hyperlink as often as it desires. In this case, all reader software
for every end user would get the same advertisement for a fixed
period of time This is undesirable as it does not take advantage of
the ability to deliver different advertisements to different
people.
[0084] Furthermore, this alternative solution makes it difficult
for advertising networks to differentiate between valid
responses/clicks on advertisements and fraudulent responses/clicks.
Advertising networks are designed to deliver one advertisement per
page view and employ sophisticated techniques to look for
advertisements that receive more than a few clicks. The former is
the most impairing flaw, as it minimizes the ability of the
publisher and advertiser to deliver their complete inventory of
advertisements.
[0085] The present invention avoids the impairments of the above
two methods by attributing a unique identifier to the or each
advertisement in the feed. The unique identifier may be changed by
the publisher as desired in order to achieve advertising diversity
and saturation rates.
[0086] An example is explained below in pseudo RSS 2.0 format:
TABLE-US-00002 1) User A calls
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/americas/default.stm to get BBC's Americas News Feed at 3:00
GMT 2) BBC returns the following RSS feed (with several items
removed) <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?> <rss
version="2.0"><channel> <title>BBC News | Americas |
World Edition</title>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/americas/default.stm</link> <description>Updated
every minute of every day - FOR PERSONAL USE
ONLY</description> <language>en-gb</language>
<lastBuildDate>Wed, 22 Sep 04 20:31:25
GMT</lastBuildDate> <copyright>Copyright: (C) British
Broadcasting Corporation,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3281849.stm</copyright>
<docs>http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/</docs>
<image> <title>BBC News</title>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk</link> </image>
<item> <title>ADV: BUY THIS NOW</title>
<description> WE HAVE WHAT YOU NEED< BUY IT
NOW</description>
<guid>adv:2004-09-21-03:00:00</guid>
<link>http://www.advertising_network.com/4000.html</link>
</item> <item> <title>Cat Stevens sparks US
alert</title> <description>Yusuf Islam, the singer
formerly known as Cat Stevens, is sent back to London after being
refused entry to the US.</description>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/publi-
/2/hi/americas/3678694.stm</link> </item> <item>
<title>Nato agrees to expand Iraq role</title>
<description>The Nato alliance agrees to play a major role in
training Iraqi security forces, a spokesman
says.</description>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/europe/3680504.stm</link> </item>
</channel> </rss> 3) User A calls
http://news.bbc.co.uk/ao/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/americas/default.stm at 3:15 GMT 4) Despite it not publishing
any new articles, the BBC returns the following RSS feed (several
items removed): <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<rss version="0.91"><channel> <title>BBC News |
Americas | World Edition</title>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/- /2
hi/americas/default.stm</link> <description>Updated
every minute of every day - FOR PERSONAL USE
ONLY</description> <language>en-gb</language>
<lastBuildDate>Wed, 22 Sep 04 20:31:25
GMT</lastBuildDate> <copyright>Copyright: (C) British
Broadcasting Corporation,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3281849.stm</copyright>
<docs>http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/</docs>
<image> <title>BBC News</title>
<url>http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/bbc_news_120x60.gif</-
url <link>http://news.bbc.co.uk</link> </image>
<item> <title>ADV: BUY NIKE NOW</title>
<description> BUY .NIKE NOW</description>
<guid>adv:2004-09-21-03:00:00</9uid>
<link>http://www.advertising_network.com/4001.html</link>
</item> <item> <title>Cat Stevens sparks US
alert</title> <description>Yusuf Islam, the singer
formerly known as Cat Stevens, is sent back to London after being
refused entry to the US.</description>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/americas/3678694.stm</link> </item> <item>
<title>Nato agrees to expand Iraq role</title>
<description>The Nato alliance agrees to play a major role in
training Iraqi security forces, a spokesman
says.</description>
<link>http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-
/2/hi/europe/3680504.stm</link> </item>
</channel> </rss>
[0087] In this case, since the reader software has used GUIDs as
the unique identifier, and thus the primary method of determining
the uniqueness of each component of the feed, the end user will
only see the first advertisement. In this example, the GUID
contains a date string, however, the GUID may, amongst other
characteristics be a 128-bit generated number, and/or contain a
date string, and/or a straight number calculated in whole or in
part from the date or date string, and/or have a "isPermaLink"
facet with a value of "true" or "false" associated therewith.
[0088] The publisher can control the saturation of advertisements
by changing the GUID for the advertisement based upon various
parameters. For instance, one parameter may be that the
advertisement is changed based on the number of articles delivered,
i.e. a new advertisements is delivered every x number of stories.
Alternatively, another parameter may be that the advertisement is
changed based on how much time has elapsed, i.e. a new
advertisement is delivered every x hours. There could well be a
combination of the above parameters or some other method.
[0089] The present invention provides the publisher with optimal
control over the placement of advertisements in their feed and the
display of those advertisements to the end user.
[0090] It is also envisaged that the publisher may also attribute
unique identifier to the or each component of the news content in a
feed. This could be advantageous in situations where the content
provider operates a policy of rapidly changing the hyperlink for
the news content located by the publisher.
[0091] That RSS forces the readers to download the entire feed
regardless of whether new content is available is a limitation of
RSS. Nevertheless, the present invention envisages supply of
advertisements in an update-only RSS feed. In this embodiment
advertisements are inserted into the update-only feed (with or
without a unique identifier) based upon the number of articles
(i.e., insert an advertisement every 10 articles, so take the
article ID and if it divides by 10 without a remainder, insert an
advertisement).
[0092] While the invention has been particularly shown and
described with reference to a preferred embodiment thereof, it will
be understood by those skilled in the art that various other
changes in the form and details may be made without departing from
the spirit and scope of the invention.
[0093] A presently preferred embodiment of the present invention
and many of its improvements have been described with a degree of
particularity. It should be understood that this description has
been made by way of example, and that the invention is defined by
the scope of the following claims.
* * * * *
References