Peer-to-peer geotargeting content with ad-hoc mesh networks

• US 10,713,686 B2
• Filed: 03/18/2016
• Issued: 07/14/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 03/22/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Retailmenot Incorporated (J2 Global, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Retailmenot Incorporated (J2 Global, Inc.)
• Inventors: Shiffert, Nicholas J., Dubuque, Shaun, Cheng, Alexander M., Rego, Jeffrey R., Randle, J. Seth
• Primary Examiner(s): Vig, Naresh
• Application Number:
  US15/074,415
• Publication Number:
  US 20160203522A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,579 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/14 Direct-mode setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

Provided is a process, including: obtaining, in memory of a first mobile computing device, a plurality of content items, at least some of the content items pertaining to respective different geographic areas; receiving, with the first mobile computing device, data indicating a user interaction with a given content item among the plurality of the content items; and in response to receiving the data indicative of the user interaction, transmitting a wireless signal from the first mobile computing device directly to a second mobile computing device that is different from the first mobile computing device, the wireless signal being indicative of the given content item and indicating that the given content item pertains to a given geographic area within range of the wireless signal transmission.

Claims

1. A tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium storing instructions that when executed by one or more mobile computing devices effectuate operations, the operations comprising:

detecting, with a processor of a first mobile computing device, one or more instances when wireless Internet access on a first wireless connection is impaired based on a threshold time to receive a response to a request transmitted over the first wireless connection being exceeded;

generating, in response to detecting a given instance of the first wireless connection being impaired, a log entry indicative of the given instance of the first wireless connection being impaired and comprising a timestamp and a geolocation of the first mobile computing device;

receiving, from a remote server, when wireless Internet access is available, one or more geofences proximate to a current geolocation of the first mobile computing device, the one or more geofences based on a plurality of logs containing one or more log entries indicative of instances of impaired wireless Internet access corresponding to geolocations associated with geographic areas covered by the respective geofences;

obtaining, in memory of the first mobile computing device, a plurality of content items, at least some of the content items pertaining to respective different geographic areas covered by the respective geofences;

monitoring the current geolocation of the first mobile computing device to determine instances when the current geolocation is within a geographic area covered by a given one of the geofences received by the first mobile device;

displaying, with the first mobile computing device, from among the plurality of the content items obtained in memory, one or more content items pertaining to the geographic area covered by the given one of the geofences received by the first mobile device;

receiving, with the first mobile computing device, data indicating a user interaction with a given one of the displayed content items pertaining to the geographic area covered by the given one of the geofences received by the first mobile device;

establishing, with the first mobile computing device, a peer to peer ad hoc network with at least one other mobile computing device; and

in response to receiving the data indicative of the user interaction, transmitting, with the first mobile computing device, a wireless signal from the first mobile computing device directly to a second mobile computing device over the peer to peer ad hoc network, the wireless signal being indicative of the given content item and indicating that the given content item potentially pertains to a given geographic area within range of the wireless signal transmission.

2. The medium of claim 1, wherein the operations comprise:

receiving, with the first mobile computing device, a request for content, including at least the given content item, from the second mobile computing device, wherein the request for content is transmitted wirelessly directly from the second mobile computing device to the first mobile computing device; and

in response to the request for content, transmitting responsive content wirelessly directly from the first mobile computing device to the second mobile computing device.

3. The medium of claim 2, wherein:

the responsive content is signed with a cryptographic signature before being obtained by the first mobile computing device by a remote computing device different from both the first mobile computing device and the second mobile computing device; and

the cryptographic signature is transmitted by the first mobile computing device to the second mobile computing device.

4. The medium of claim 1, wherein:

the wireless signal is a wireless beacon broadcast without regard to whether a receiver is present to receive the wireless signal.

5. The medium of claim 1, wherein the operations comprise:

measuring acceleration of the first mobile computing device with an accelerometer and gyroscope of the first mobile computing device;

estimating a distance moved by the first mobile computing device after receiving the data indicative of the user interaction based on the measured acceleration; and

adjusting transmission of the wireless signal from the first mobile computing device based on the estimated distance.

6. The medium of claim 5, wherein adjusting transmission comprises ceasing repeated transmissions of the wireless signal upon determining that the distance exceeds a threshold.

7. The medium of claim 5, wherein adjusting transmission comprises decreasing transmission power of the wireless signal in response to an increase in the distance.

8. The medium of claim 1, wherein the operations comprise:

receiving the wireless signal with the second mobile computing device;

retransmitting at least part of data encoded in the wireless signal from the second mobile computing device wirelessly directly to a third mobile computing device; and

transmitting from the second mobile computing device wirelessly directly to the third mobile computing device a value indicating that the at least part of the data has been retransmitted at least once.

9. The medium of claim 1, wherein the content items are obtained via a cellular transceiver of the first mobile computing device and the wireless signal is transmitted via a different transceiver of the first mobile computing device.

10. The medium of claim 1, wherein the wireless signal is encoded in a Low Energy Bluetooth beacon.

11. The medium of claim 1, wherein the operations comprise:

receiving the wireless signal with the second mobile computing device;

obtaining, from a collection of content items including at least some of the plurality of content items, another content item that is different from the given content item, wherein the another content item is selected from the collection of content items based on both information encoded in the wireless signal and a user profile associated with the second mobile computing device.

12. The medium of claim 1, comprising:

receiving the wireless signal with a plurality of other mobile computing devices including the second mobile computing device; and

in response, emitting an audible alert with at least some of the plurality of other mobile computing devices.

13. The medium of claim 1, wherein:

the content items include information about a plurality of businesses, each content item being associated with at least a respective one of the plurality of businesses, and

the operations comprise;

identifying a given business associated with the given content item; and

selecting one or more other content items associated with the given business for presentation on the second mobile device.

14. The medium of claim 13, wherein:

the wireless signal is indicative of the given content item by identifying a retail store to which the given content item pertains, wherein the plurality of content items include a subset of content items pertaining to the retail store, and the wireless signal is also indicative of the subset of content items.

15. The medium of claim 1, wherein:

obtaining a plurality of content items comprises;

sending, with the first mobile device, a request for the plurality of content items to a remote offer distribution system, the request identifying an geographic location of the first mobile device; and

receiving a plurality of offers selected based on the geographic location; and

receiving, with the first mobile computing device, data indicative of a user interaction with the given one of the content items comprises;

displaying at least some of the offers with the first mobile device; and

receiving a user request to redeem one of the displayed offers with the first mobile device.

16. The medium of claim 1, the operations comprising:

detecting, with the first mobile computing device, that the geographic area covered by the given one of the geofences is a cache geofence;

sending, to a remote server, a request for content corresponding to the cache geofence;

receiving, with the first mobile computing device, responsive content including the plurality of content items; and

storing, with cache memory of the first mobile computing device, the responsive content before content items among the responsive content are requested by a user of the first mobile computing device.

17. The medium of claim 1, the operations comprising:

receiving a user selection to view the given one of the content items;

displaying additional information about the given one of the content items;

receiving a request to present a machine-readable code with the first mobile computing device to a sensor of another computing device, the request to present the machine-readable code being the received user interaction; and

presenting the machine-readable code with the first mobile computing device.

18. The medium of claim 17, the operations comprising:

after storing the log entry, determining that wireless Internet access is available to the first mobile computing device;

in response to determining that wireless Internet access is available, retrieving data indicative of the log entry from memory; and

sending the data indicative of the log entry to a remote server.

19. The medium of claim 1, the operations comprising:

receiving a user request for offers with the first mobile computing device when the first mobile computing device has wireless access to the internet;

sending the request to a remote offer distribution system operative to distribute offers both to mobile devices and to non-mobile devices;

receiving at least some of the requested offers;

displaying at least some of the requested offers to a user of the first mobile computing device; and

capturing data indicative of a redemption of at least some of the displayed offers; and

sending the captured data to the remote offer distribution system to calculate affiliate compensation.

20. A method, comprising:

detecting, with a processor of a first mobile computing device, one or more instances when wireless Internet access on a first wireless connection is impaired based on a threshold time to receive a response to a request transmitted over the first wireless connection being exceeded;

generating in response to detecting a given instance of the first wireless connection being impaired, a log entry indicative of the given instance of the first wireless connection being impaired and comprising a timestamp and a geolocation of the first mobile computing device;

receiving, from a remote server, when wireless Internet access is available, one or more geofences proximate to a current geolocation of the first mobile computing device, the one or more geofences based on a plurality of logs containing one or more log entries indicative of instances of impaired wireless Internet access corresponding to geolocations associated with geographic areas covered by the respective geofences;

obtaining, in memory of the first mobile computing device, a plurality of content items, at least some of the content items pertaining to respective different geographic areas covered by the respective geofences;

monitoring the current geolocation of the first mobile computing device to determine instances when the current geolocation is within a geographic area covered by a given one of the geofences received by the first mobile device;

displaying, with the first mobile computing device, from among the plurality of the content items obtained in memory, one or more content items pertaining to the geographic area covered by the given one of the geofences received by the first mobile device;

receiving, with the first mobile computing device, data indicating a user interaction with a given one of the displayed content items pertaining to the geographic area covered by the given one of the geofences received by the first mobile device;

establishing, with the first mobile computing device, a peer to peer ad hoc network with at least one other mobile computing device; and

in response to receiving the data indicative of the user interaction, transmitting, with the first mobile computing device, a wireless signal from the first mobile computing device directly to a second mobile computing device over the peer to peer ad hoc network, the wireless signal being indicative of the given content item and indicating that the given content item pertains to a given geographic area within the range of the wireless signal transmission.