Methods and apparatus for interactive content injection

• US 10,140,125 B1
• Filed: 08/20/2012
• Issued: 11/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/23/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ragapa, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Ragapa, Inc.
• Inventors: Bhasin, Parvinder S., Singh, Gagandeep B., Virk, Ravinder S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Bryan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Gidado, Oluwatosin
• Application Number:
  US13/589,998
• Time in Patent Office: 2,290 Days
• Field of Search: 709226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/70 Software maintenance or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/32 Address formation of the next instruction, e.g. by incrementing the instruction counter G06F9/38 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45529 Embedded in an application, e.g. JavaScript in a Web browser
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/48 Program initiating; Program switching, e.g. by interrupt
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06316 Sequencing of tasks or work
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

A method in a network device acting as a gateway of a venue for providing interactive content to a client device. The network device receives a first request from the client device for a webpage accessible through a data network, transmits a second request for the webpage, and receives the webpage. The network device determines whether the webpage is eligible for modification. Responsive to determining that the webpage is eligible for modification, the network device retrieves, from a central system, content to be injected into the webpage that includes a script to be executed by a web browser of the client device that causes the web browser to display the interactive content, modifies the webpage to yield a modified webpage that includes the content, and transmits, to the client device, the modified webpage, whereby the modified webpage is displayed by the web browser with the interactive content.

Claims

1. A method for providing interactive content to a client device, the method comprising:

receiving, at a network device, a first request from the client device for a webpage accessible through a data network, the first request including a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) of the webpage;

transmitting, by the network device over the data network, a second request for the webpage using the URI;

receiving, by the network device, the webpage;

determining the webpage is eligible for modification by determining that the webpage is of a hyper text markup language (HTML) file type, wherein no other webpage file type is eligible for modification;

responsive to determining that the webpage is eligible for modification based solely on the webpage being of the HTML file type,

retrieving a script to be injected into the webpage based upon a type of the web browser or the client device, wherein the script to be executed by a web browser of the client device that causes the web browser to display the interactive content,

modifying the webpage to yield a modified webpage that includes the script, and

transmitting, to the client device, the modified webpage;

receiving a request generated by the script of the modified webpage on the client device for interactive content; and

providing the interactive content, wherein the interactive content is to determine when user focus of the interactive content has been lost and halt refresh of the interactive content.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the script is a JavaScript script.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the script comprises one or more AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) calls.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the one or more AJAX calls cause the web browser to request the interactive content.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive content is displayed at or adjacent to the bottom of the web browser.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive content comprises a button that, when selected by a user of the client device, hides the interactive content so that the webpage is displayed without the interactive content.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the interactive content is based upon a geographic location of the client device.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising recording, by the network device, a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the client device, an Internet Protocol (IP) address used by the client device, or a cookie provided by the client device.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the second request includes fewer HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) headers than the first request.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining the type of the web browser based upon a Web user agent of the first request.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining the webpage is eligible for modification further comprises:

determining that the webpage does not belong to a do not inject list.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein do not inject list is a list of at least one or more servers, domains, subdomains, partial URIs, and individual document addresses.

22. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

tracking and reporting script displayed to the client device, which client device displayed the script, and what time the content was displayed.

23. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing a browser of the client device by the script of the modified webpage to determine a rendering of the interactive content.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the interactive content is superimposed on the webpage.

11. A network device, which is to be coupled between a data network and a set of one or more client devices, to act as a gateway of a venue to the data network for the set of client devices and provide interactive content to the set of client devices, the network device comprising:

a network adapter configured to,

receive a first set of one or more requests from the set of client devices for one or more webpages,

transmit a second set of one or more requests for the one or more webpages, and

receive the one or more webpages through the data network; and

a content modification module coupled to the network adapter and configured to,

determine whether each of the one or more webpages is eligible for modification by determining that the webpage is of a hyper text markup language (HTML) file type, wherein no other webpage file type is eligible for modification, and

for each of the one or more webpages that are determined eligible for modification based solely on the webpage being of the HTML file type,

retrieve a script to be injected into the webpage, wherein the script includes a script to be executed by a web browser of the respective client device that causes the web browser to display the interactive content,

modify the webpage to yield a modified webpage that includes the script, and

cause the network adapter to transmit each modified webpage to the respective client device that requested the respective webpage, wherein the interactive content is to determine when user focus of the interactive content has been lost and halt refresh of the interactive content via the network adapter.

12. The network device of claim 11, wherein the script is a JavaScript script.

13. The network device of claim 12, wherein the script comprises one or more AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) calls.

14. The network device of claim 13, wherein the one or more AJAX calls cause the one or more web browsers to request the interactive content.

15. The network device of claim 11, wherein the interactive content is displayed at or adjacent to the bottom of the one or more web browsers.

16. The network device of claim 11, wherein the interactive content comprises a button that, when selected by a user of the respective client device, hides the interactive content so that the respective webpage is displayed without the interactive content.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor of a network device acting as a gateway for a venue and that is communicatively coupled between a client device and a data network, cause the network device to provide interactive content to the client device by performing operations comprising:

receiving, at the network device, a first request from the client device for a webpage accessible through the data network, the first request including a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) of the webpage;

transmitting, by the network device over the data network, a second request for the webpage using the URI;

receiving, by the network device, the webpage;

determining the webpage is eligible for modification by determining that the webpage is of a hyper text markup language (HTML) file type, wherein no other webpage file type is eligible for modification; and

responsive to determining that the webpage is eligible for modification based solely on the webpage being of the HTML file type,

retrieving a script to be injected into the webpage, wherein the script to be executed by a web browser of the client device that causes the web browser to display the interactive content,

modifying the webpage to yield a modified webpage that includes the script,

transmitting, to the client device, the modified webpage; and

providing the interactive content, wherein the interactive content is to determine when user focus of the interactive content has been lost and halt refresh of the interactive content.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the script is a JavaScript script.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the script comprises one or more AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) calls that cause the web browser to request at least some of the interactive content.