Advertising Message Referrals

• US 20080195466A1
• Filed: 09/27/2006
• Published: 08/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wright, Steven Allan
• Granted Patent: US 8,094,794 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.41
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0242 Determining effectiveness of advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0252 based on events or environment, e.g. weather or festivals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/23 Reliability checks, e.g. acknowledgments or fault reporting
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4878 Advertisement messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0027 Collaboration services where a computer is used for data transfer and the telephone is used for telephonic communication

Abstract

Advertising referral methods and systems allow a first user to refer advertisements of interest to other users, taking advantage of pre-existing social networks. A referral server may coordinate a referral by either receiving a referral message from the first user for forwarding to another user, or by receiving notification of the referral message. Information about the referral may be stored in a database. If another user accesses the referred advertisement, additional information may be received by the referral server and stored in the database. The first user may be credited with inducements based on the referred advertisement and whether or not another user accessed it.

Claims

1. A method for referring an advertisement from a first user device to a second user device, the method comprising:

receiving a first notification from a first user device that the advertisement is to be referred to at least the second user device;

storing information associated with the first user device and information associated with the advertisement; and

if the second user device accesses the advertisement, then;

receiving a second notification from the second user device that the advertisement was accessed, and

storing information associated with the second user device and information associated with the advertisement.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a message from the first user device for forwarding to the second user device, wherein the message includes a reference to the advertisement; and

forwarding the message to the second user device.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein receiving the message comprises receiving the message that includes a reference to an attached version of the advertisement.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein receiving the message comprises receiving the message that includes a reference to a remotely-stored version of the advertisement.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

validating that the advertisement should be referred to the second user device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein storing information associated with the first user device and information associated with the advertisement comprises:

storing an identifier of the advertisement; and

storing an identifier of a first user of the first user device.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein storing information associated with the first user device and information associated with the advertisement further comprises storing information about an inducement credited to the first user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein storing information associated with the second user device and information associated with the advertisement comprises:

storing an identifier of the advertisement; and

storing an identifier of a second user of the second user device.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein storing information associated with the second user device and information associated with the advertisement further comprises storing information about an additional inducement credited to the first user.

10. A system for referring an advertisement from a first user device to a second user device, the system comprising:

an advertisement serving device, having means for serving the advertisement to the first user device;

a database serving device, having means for storing information associated with the advertisement, the first user device, and the second user device; and

a referral serving device, having;

means for receiving a first notification that the first user device is referring the advertisement to at least the second user device,

means for storing information associated with the first notification in the database serving device, and

if the advertisement is accessed by the second user device, means for receiving a second notification, and means for storing information associated with the second notification in the database serving device.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the means for receiving the first notification at the referral serving device comprises means for receiving a message from the first user device for forwarding to the second user device, wherein the message includes a reference to the advertisement.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the means for receiving the message comprises means for receiving the message that includes a reference to an attached copy of the advertisement.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the means for receiving a message comprises means for receiving the message that includes a reference to the advertisement stored on the advertising serving device.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the advertisement serving device further comprises:

means for determining a first version of the advertisement to serve to the first user device,

means for determining a second version of the advertisement to serve to the second user device, wherein the second version is different from the first version, and

means for serving the second version to the second user device.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the referral serving device storing information associated with the first notification in the database serving device comprises means for storing an identifier of the advertisement and an identifier of a first user of the first user device.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the referral serving device further comprises means for storing information about an inducement credited to the first user.

17. A method for referring an advertisement to a remote user, the method comprising:

receiving the advertisement via a network;

receiving an instruction from a referring user to refer the advertisement;

receiving a remote user selection from the referring user; and

forwarding a message for delivery to the remote user, wherein the message includes a reference to the advertisement.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein forwarding the message includes forwarding the advertisement as an attachment to the message.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein forwarding the message includes forwarding a uniform resource locator (URL) locating a version of the advertisement.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein forwarding the message includes forwarding the message directly to the remote user, and wherein the method further comprises:

providing a notification including an identifier of the referring user, an identifier of the remote user, and an identifier of the advertisement.