System and method for advertisement delivery within a video time shifting architecture

• US 20050060229A1
• Filed: 07/26/2004
• Published: 03/17/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC (Charter Communications Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC (Charter Communications Incorporated)
• Inventors: Santangelo, Bryan, Gonder, Tom, Jordan, Brad, Riedl, Steve, Urdang, Erik
• Granted Patent: US 8,229,789 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.610
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0258 Registration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0264 based upon schedule
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0272 Period of advertisement exposure
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0276 Advertisement creation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2407 Monitoring of transmitted content, e.g. distribution time, number of downloads arrangements for monitoring programmes for broadcast or for distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/14
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25883 being end-user demographical data, e.g. age, family status or address arrangements for identifying locations of users in broadcast systems H04H60/52
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26258 for generating a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlist, or scheduling item distribution according to such list retrieval of multimedia data based on playlists G06F16/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2668 Creating a channel for a dedicated end-user group, e.g. insertion of targeted commercials based on end-user profiles information retrieval from the Internet by querying with filtering and personalisation G06F16/9535; arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast H04H20/10; push services over packet-switching network H04L12/1859; adaptation of message content in packet-switching networks H04L51/063
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2747 Remote storage of video programs received via the downstream path, e.g. from the server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6587 Control parameters, e.g. trick play commands, viewpoint selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/854 Content authoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8543 using a description language, e.g. Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group [MHEG], eXtensible Markup Language [XML] information retrieval of semistructured data, the underlying structure being taken into account, e.g. mark-up language structure data G06F16/80
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 : Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

The present invention is directed to systems and methods for employing canonical metadata to describe advertisements comprising an advertiser storing an advertisement and arbitrarily complex metadata that is descriptive of the advertisement, which is received at a control center. At the control center, the advertisement is mapped to canonical metadata. The advertisement and canonical metadata are stored at the control center for use in discriminating between advertisements from a plurality of advertisers. An application program interface is provided for facilitating communication between a first computer and a second computer comprising means for the first computer requesting registration with the second computer, means for the second computer responding to the registration request of the first computer, means for the second computer requesting an advertisement identifier from the first computer in response to the occurrence of an event and means for transmitting the advertisement identifier from the second computer to the first computer.

Claims

1. A method for processing an advertisement, the method comprising:

storing an advertisement and arbitrarily complex metadata that is descriptive of the advertisement at an advertiser;

receiving the advertisement at a control center;

mapping the advertisement to canonical metadata; and

storing the advertisement and the canonical metadata at the control center.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, comprising associating the advertisement with advertiser information and storing the advertiser information at the control center.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the arbitrarily complex metadata includes at least one of a unique identifier, the advertisement name, creation date, advertisement description information, and preferred playback time of the advertisement.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 comprising:

receiving at the control center a request from the advertiser to display the advertisement by reference to the canonical metadata; and

displaying the advertisement.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

storing a logical array at the control center that identifies program scheduling and description information for a given show and advertisers who desire to display advertisements for the given show; and

contacting a corresponding advertiser based on an entry in the logical array when the control center determines that an advertisement is needed during the given show.

6. A method for processing an advertisement, the method comprising:

storing an advertisement at an advertiser in association with arbitrarily complex metadata that describes the advertisement;

receiving the advertisement at a control center from the vendor;

mapping the advertisement to canonical metadata that including less information than the arbitrarily complex metadata;

storing the advertisement at the control center in association with the canonical metadata;

storing a logical array at the control center that identifies program scheduling and description information for a given show and advertisers who desire to display advertisements for the given show;

contacting a corresponding advertiser based on an entry in the logical array when the control center determines that an advertisement is needed during the given show; and

receiving the canonical metadata from the vendor.

7. A control center which displays advertisements, the control center comprising:

a processor operative to receive an advertisement and arbitrarily complex metadata relating to the advertisement from an advertiser;

the processor further operative to map the advertisement to canonical metadata, the canonical metadata including less information than the arbitrarily complex metadata; and

a memory operative to store the advertisement in association with the canonical metadata.

8. The control center as recited in claim 7, wherein the memory stores the advertisement in association with advertiser information.

9. The control center as recited in claim 7, wherein the arbitrarily complex metadata includes at least one of a unique identifier, the advertisement name, creation date, advertisement description information, and preferred playback time of the advertisement.

10. The control center as recited in claim 7, wherein the memory stores a logical array that identifies program scheduling and description information for a given show and advertisers who desire to display advertisements for the given show;

and

the control center contacts a corresponding advertiser based on an entry in the logical array when the control center determines that an advertisement is needed during a given show.

11. A system for displaying an advertisement, the system comprising:

an advertiser maintaining one or more advertisements; and

a control center, the control center including;

an advertisement management system (AMS) operative to receive an advertisement and arbitrarily complex metadata relating to the advertisement from the advertiser and map the advertisement to canonical metadata that includes less information than the arbitrarily complex metadata, and

a memory operative to store the advertisement in association with the canonical metadata.

12. The system as recited in claim 11 wherein the memory stores the advertisement in association with advertiser information.

13. The system as recited in claim 11, wherein the arbitrarily complex metadata includes at least one of a unique identifier, the advertisement name, creation date, advertisement description information, and preferred playback time of the advertisement.

14. The system as recited in claim 11, wherein:

the memory stores a logical array that identifies program scheduling and description information for a given show and advertisers who desire to display advertisements for the given show; and

the control center contacts a corresponding advertiser based on an entry in the logical array when the control center determines that an advertisement is needed during a given show.

15. The system as recited in claim 11, wherein:

the control center receives a request from the advertiser to display the advertisement by reference to the canonical metadata; and

the control center displays the advertisement.

16. An application program interface (API) for facilitating communication between a first computer and a second computer, the API comprising:

means for the first computer requesting registration with the second computer;

means for the second computer responding to the registration request of the first computer;

means for the second computer requesting an advertisement identifier from the first computer in response to the occurrence of an event; and

means for transmitting the advertisement identifier from the second computer to the first computer.

17. The API of claim 16 comprising:

means for the second computer acknowledging to the first computer that playback of an advertisement associated with the advertisement identifier is complete;

means for the second computer alerting the first computer that a new advertisement is available;

means for the first computer instructing the second computer to list a set of available advertisements; and

means for the second computer transmitting a listing of the set of available advertisements in response to the first computer'"'"'s instruction.

18. The API of claim 17 comprising means for the first computer and the second computer exchanging service error messages.

19. The API of claim 16 wherein the means for requesting registration comprises means for identifying one or more services.

20. The API of claim 19 wherein the means for identifying one or more services identifies a scope and an advertisement type of the one or more services.

21. The API of claim 16 wherein the means for responding identifies one or more service errors.

22. The API of claim 16 wherein the means for requesting an advertisement comprises means for identifying one or more attributes.

23. The API of claim 22 wherein the one or more attributes are selected from the group consisting of a session identifier, a local zone identifier, a service group and a zip+4.

24. The API of claim 16 wherein the means for requesting an advertisement comprises one or more components.

25. The API of claim 24 wherein the one or more components comprises an avail that identifies one or more avail components selected from the group consisting of an advertisement type, an expected time of fulfillment, a time at which the avail was created, am advertiser identifier, a scope of the avail, an avail identifier and a duration of the avail.

26. The API of claim 24 wherein the one or more components comprises a program component that identifies a program identifier.

27. The API of claim 24 wherein the one or more components comprises a terminal address component that identifies a terminal to which an avail is to be delivered.

28. The API of claim 24 wherein the one or more components comprises one or more targeting codes to facilitate targeting of a given advertisement.

29. The API of claim 16 wherein the first computer is an advertisement selection system (ADS) operative to select advertisements and the second computer is an advertisement management system (AMS) operative to manage and playback advertisements.

30. The API of claim 16 comprising a plurality of advertisement management systems.

31. The API of claim 17 wherein the means for alerting identifies one or more advertisements.

32. The API of claim 17 wherein the means for acknowledging that playback is complete comprises an identifier for an advertisement and the start and end times of the playback.

33. The API of claim 17 wherein the means for transmitting the list of the set of available advertisements comprises transmitting a list of one or more advertisement identifiers.

34. An advertisement management system (ADM) that implements and application program interface (API) to expose functionality offered by the ADM to one or more advertisement selection systems (ADS), the API exposing functionality to allow the ADS to register with the ADM;

allow the ADM to request fulfillment of avails by the one or more ADS, and allow the ADS to supply one or more advertisement identifiers to the ADM for advertisement selection and playback to a client.

35. An application program interface (API) for facilitating communication between a first computer and a second computer, the API comprising:

means for the first computer requesting registration with the second computer;

means for the second computer responding to the registration request of the first computer;

means for the second computer requesting an advertisement identifier from the first computer in response to the occurrence of an event;

means for transmitting the advertisement identifier from the second computer to the first computer;

means for the second computer acknowledging to the first computer that playback of an advertisement associated with the advertisement identifier is complete;

means for the second computer alerting the first computer that a new advertisement is available;

means for the first computer instructing the second computer to list a set of available advertisements; and

means for the second computer transmitting a listing of the set of available advertisements in response to the first computer'"'"'s instruction.

36. The API of claim 35 wherein the first computer is an advertisement selection system (ADS) operative to select advertisements and the second computer is an advertisement management system (AMS) operative to manage and playback advertisements.