System and method for targeted ad delivery

• US 20070100796A1
• Filed: 10/28/2005
• Published: 05/03/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Disney Enterprises Incorporated (The Walt Disney Company)
• Original Assignee: Disney Enterprises Incorporated (The Walt Disney Company)
• Inventors: Wang, Yiqing
• Granted Patent: US 7,734,632 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A method and system of generating a user profile for advertisement over a computer network is disclosed. A webpage identifier that identifies a webpage is generated. The webpage identifier can be a universal resource locator. A content category identifier that identifies a content category is generated. The webpage identifier is associated with the content category identifier if web content depicted in the webpage is relevant to the content category. A web server then receives a request for the webpage, the request including the webpage identifier and a first user identifier, the request being received from a client computer connected to the computer network. The webpage request can include a webpage request timestamp. A user profile is located by determining whether the first user identifier matches a second user identifier corresponding to the user profile. The user profile includes at least one user content category identifier and a corresponding user interest score. A predetermined amount is established independently from the web content depicted in the webpage being viewed by the user. The corresponding user interest score is increased by the predetermined amount if the content category identifier matches the at least one user content category identifier.

Claims

1. A method of generating a user profile for advertisement over a computer network, comprising:

determining a webpage identifier that identifies a webpage;

defining a content category identifier that identifies a content category;

associating the webpage identifier with the content category identifier when web content depicted in the webpage is relevant to the content category;

receiving, at a web server, a request for the webpage, the request including the webpage identifier and a first user identifier, the request being received from a client computer connected to the computer network;

locating a user profile by determining whether the first user identifier matches a second user identifier corresponding to the user profile, wherein the user profile includes a user interest score corresponding to a user content category identifier; and

increasing the corresponding user interest score by a predetermined amount when the content category identifier associated with the requested webpage matches the user content category identifier, wherein the predetermined amount is established independently from the web content depicted in the webpage being viewed by the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the webpage identifier is a universal resource locator.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding user interest score is indicative of a level of interest of the user in a content category.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising reducing the corresponding user interest score according to a decay rate.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced daily regardless of whether a webpage request has been received at the web server.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced periodically regardless of whether a webpage request has been received at the web server.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising reducing the corresponding user interest score according to a long-term decay rate which slowly reduces the corresponding user interest score.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced by a long-term decay rate when the corresponding user interest score surpasses a high threshold.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising reducing the corresponding user interest score according to a short-term decay rate which rapidly reduces the corresponding user interest score.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced by a short-term decay rate when the corresponding user interest score decreases below a low threshold.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising reducing the corresponding user interest score according to a short-term decay rate which rapidly reduces the corresponding user interest score, wherein when the corresponding user interest score surpasses a high threshold the corresponding user interest score ceases to be reduced by the short-term decay and instead is reduced by a long-term decay rate.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising utilizing a plurality of decay rates to decay the corresponding user interest score, wherein a decay rate from the plurality of decay rates is chosen to be utilized depending upon the user behavior.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising decaying the corresponding user interest score of a first content category in the user profile at a different rate from the corresponding user interest score of a second content category, wherein the difference is due to the user behaving differently with respect to the first content category in comparison to the second content category.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the corresponding user interest score of the first content category in the user profile is decayed slowly if the user shows a long-term interest in the content category.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the user shows a long-term interest if the user makes webpages requests frequent enough such that the corresponding user interest score increases beyond a predefined threshold.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the corresponding user interest score of the second content category in the user profile is decayed quickly if the user shows a short-term interest in the content category.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

assigning the corresponding user interest score to be reduced by a long-term decay rate if the corresponding user interest score of the content category identifier surpasses a high threshold;

determining whether the user has a long-term interest in the content category by checking whether the content category is assigned to be reduced by a long-term decay rate; and

if it is determined that the user has a long-term interest in the content category, decaying the corresponding user interest score utilizing the long-term decay rate, wherein the long-term decay rate slowly reduces the corresponding user interest score.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein if it is determined that the user does not have a long-term interest in the content category, decaying the corresponding user interest score utilizing the short-term decay rate.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising deleting the user profile if a webpage request is not received from a user after a threshold time.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising deleting the user profile if the corresponding user interest score decreases beyond a low threshold.

21. The method of claim 1, further comprising deleting a user interest score corresponding to a particular content category from the user profile if the user interest score corresponding to that particular content category decreases beyond a low threshold.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the webpage request includes a webpage request timestamp.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding user interest score can be further increased by taking into account an elapsed time between the time of a last webpage request and the time of the webpage request received.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the corresponding user interest score is increased in inversely proportion to the length of time of the elapsed time.

25. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined amount is utilized to increase the corresponding user interest score every time the user makes a request to a website that has an associated content category.

26. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined amount is utilized to increase the user interest score corresponding to each one of a plurality of content category identifiers in a user profile.

27. The method of claim 1, further comprising logging the webpage identifier, and the user identifier, in a log file.

28. The method of claim 1, further associating the webpage and at least one other content category by correlating the webpage identifier corresponding to the webpage with a content category identifier corresponding to the at least one other content category.

29. The method of claim 1, wherein the webpage identifier is further associated with a second content category, such that the when the webpage is requested, a second user interest score corresponding to the second content category is increased by the predetermined amount.

30. The method of claim 1, wherein the user profile is implemented utilizing a data structure comprising a content category field, an interest score field, and a timestamp field.

31. A method of generating a user profile for advertisement over a computer network, comprising:

determining a webpage identifier that identifies a webpage;

defining a content category identifier that identifies a content category;

associating the webpage identifier with the content category identifier when web content depicted in the webpage is relevant to the content category;

receiving, at a web server, a request for the webpage, the request including the webpage identifier and a first user identifier, the request being received from a client computer connected to the computer network;

locating a user profile by determining whether the first user identifier matches a second user identifier corresponding to the user profile, wherein the user profile includes at least one user content category identifier and a corresponding user interest score;

providing a predetermined amount, wherein the predetermined amount is established independently from the web content depicted in the webpage being viewed by the user;

if the content category identifier matches the at least one user content category identifier, increasing the corresponding user interest score by the predetermined amount;

assigning the corresponding user interest score to be reduced by a long-term decay rate when the corresponding user interest score of the content category identifier surpasses a high threshold;

determining whether the user has a long-term interest in the content category by checking whether the content category is assigned to be reduced by a long-term decay rate; and

if it is determined that the user has a long-term interest in the content category, decaying the corresponding user interest score utilizing the long-term decay rate, wherein the long-term decay rate slowly reduces the corresponding user interest score.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein if it is determined that the user does not have a long-term interest in the content category, decaying the corresponding user interest score utilizing a short-term decay rate.

33. A system to deliver advertisement over a computer network, comprising:

a merchant sever configured to receive a webpage request from a web browser on the user computer, the webpage request including a universal resource locator and a user identifier; and

a user profile database to store user profiles, each user profile comprising a plurality of content category identifiers, wherein each of the plurality of content category identifier has a corresponding user interest score and a timestamp indicating when the webpage request is last received, wherein the corresponding user interest score increases based on the frequency a webpage associated with the content category is requested.

34. The system of claim 33, wherein the corresponding user interest score is indicative of a level of interest of the user in a content category identified by the at least one user content category identifier.

35. The system of claim 33, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced according to a decay rate.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced daily regardless of whether a webpage request has been received at the web server.

37. The system of claim 35, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced according to a long-term decay rate which slowly reduces the corresponding user interest score.

38. The system of claim 37, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced by a long-term decay rate if the corresponding user interest score surpasses a high threshold.

39. The system of claim 33, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced according to a short-term decay rate which rapidly reduces the corresponding user interest score.

40. The system of claim 39, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced by a short-term decay rate if the corresponding user interest score decreases below a low threshold.

48. The method of claim 37, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced daily regardless of whether a webpage request has been received at the web server.

41. A method of receiving a targeted advertisement over a computer network, comprising:

transmitting from a client computer a request for a webpage, the request including a webpage identifier and a first user identifier, the request being received by a web server that locates a user profile by determining whether the first user identifier matches a second user identifier corresponding to the user profile, wherein the web server further locates a content category identifier in the user profile by determining whether web content depicted in the webpage is associated to the content identified by the content category identifier, wherein the web server increases a corresponding user interest score by a predetermined amount that is independent from the web content depicted in the webpage;

receiving the requested webpage from the web server; and

receiving Internet content, wherein the Internet content is related to a content category in the user profile having an associated interest score higher than a predetermined amount.

42. The method of claim 41, wherein the Internet content includes advertisement.

43. The method of claim 41, wherein the Internet content includes music.

44. The method of claim 41, wherein the Internet content includes video.

45. The method of claim 41, wherein the webpage identifier is a universal resource locator.

46. The method of claim 41, wherein the corresponding user interest score is indicative of a level of interest of the user in a content category identified by the at least one user content category identifier.

47. The method of claim 41, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced according to a decay rate.

49. The method of claim 41, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced according to a long-term decay rate which slowly reduces the corresponding user interest score.

50. The method of claim 49, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced by a long-term decay rate if the corresponding user interest score surpasses a high threshold.

51. The method of claim 41, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced according to a short-term decay rate which rapidly reduces the corresponding user interest score.

52. The method of claim 51, wherein the corresponding user interest score is reduced by a short-term decay rate if the corresponding user interest score decreases below a low threshold.