Systems and Methods to Provide advertisements for Real Time Communications

• US 20080275785A1
• Filed: 05/02/2008
• Published: 11/06/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/03/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thryv, Inc. (Mudrick Capital Management LP)
• Original Assignee: UTBK, Inc.
• Inventors: Van Der Linden, Sean, Altberg, Ebbe, Faber, Scott, Hirson, Ron, Manca, Paul G.
• Granted Patent: US 9,105,032 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0264 based upon schedule
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

Systems and methods to provide advertisements based on the content of documents in which the advertisements are presented. One embodiment includes: a web server to receive a request for an advertisement in reference to a document provided to a user by a content provider; a backend server to identify the advertisement based on relevancy of the advertisement to the content of the document and to associate a communication reference with the advertisement and the content provider, the web server to provide the advertisement and the reference for inclusion in the document; and a telecommunication server coupled to a session border controller and the backend server to receive a connection request via the reference, to determine contact information of the advertiser and identify the content provider based on the reference, and to establish the connection between the user and the advertiser using the determined contact information.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

identifying an advertisement based at least in part on relevancy of the advertisement to a content of a document provided by a content provider to a user;

associating a communication reference with the advertisement and the content provider, the communication reference to be used to request a connection provider to establish a connection for real time communications between the user and an advertiser of the advertisement;

adding the advertisement and the communication reference to the document via the content provider;

in response to receiving a request from the user via the communication reference, determining contact information of the advertiser based on the communication reference used to receive the request;

establishing the connection between the user and the advertiser using the contact information determined from the communication reference;

identifying the content provider based on the communication reference used to receive the request; and

compensating the content provider per the establishing of the connection between the user and the advertiser.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication reference comprises a telephone number of the connection provider without an extension, a telephone number of the connection provider with an extension, a session initiation protocol (SIP) uniform resource identifier (URI), or a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) user identifier.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

charging the advertiser an advertisement fee per the establishing of the connection between the user and the advertiser.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the communication reference comprises a link which when selected by the user causes a telephonic application to initiate a telephone call.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the connection between the user and the advertiser includes a connection for real time communications between the user and the advertiser in text, voice or video.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the connection between the user and the advertiser includes a telephonic connection.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the receiving of the request from the user includes the connection provider receiving a telephone call from the user;

and the establishing of the connection includes the connection provider placing a separate telephone call to the advertiser and bridging the telephone call received from the user and the separate telephone call placed to the advertiser.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the establishing of the connection includes:

the connection provider establishing a first Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) connection with a telecommunication carrier which bridges the first VoIP connection to a public switched telephone network (PSTN) to the user;

the connection provider establishing a second Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) connection with a telecommunication carrier which bridges the second VoIP connection to a public switched telephone network (PSTN) to the advertiser; and

connecting the first and second VoIP connections.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the connecting the first and second VoIP connections comprises establishing a media connection that does not go through the connection provider to connect the user and the advertiser.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the adding of the advertisement and the communication reference to the document comprises:

providing the content provider with a code to be embedded in the document, when loaded into a browser the code to generate a request from the browser in reference to the document; and

providing the advertisement and the communication reference to the browser in response to the request from browser.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the advertisement is identified in response to the request from the browser.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying of the advertisement comprises:

receiving the document from the content provider;

determining one or more keywords from the document; and

searching an advertisement database based on the one or more keywords.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the identifying of the advertiser further comprising:

sorting a plurality of candidates resulted from the searching of the advertisement database; and

based on a result of the sorting of the plurality of candidates, selecting one or more advertisements from the candidates for inclusion in the document.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the searching includes searching with a criterion based on availability of advertisers to communicate with the user in real time according to schedules of the advertisers.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the searching includes searching with a criterion to filter out advertisers of competitors of the content provider.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the sorting includes sorting according to bid prices of advertisers of the candidates;

wherein the bid prices are to be charged in response to the connection provider connecting the user to advertisers of the candidates for real time voice communications.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

determining earning potentials of presenting the respective candidates;

wherein the sorting includes sorting the candidates according to the earning potentials; and

wherein the earning potentials include advertisement fees charged per establishing real time communication connections from a customer to the advertisers of the candidates and commission fees charged based on customer purchases via the real time communication connections between the customer and the advertisers of the candidates.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the content of the document comprises a blog, a profile page of a member of an online social network, an email message accessed via a web site, a news article, an electronic book, or an electronic magazine.

19. A machine readable media embodying instructions, the instructions causing a machine to perform a method, the method comprising:

identifying an advertisement based at least in part on relevancy of the advertisement to a content of a document provided by a content provider to a user;

associating a communication reference with the advertisement and the content provider, the communication reference to be used to request a connection provider to establish a connection for real time communications between the user and an advertiser of the advertisement;

adding the advertisement and the communication reference to the document via the content provider;

in response to a request received from the user via the communication reference, determining contact information of the advertiser based on the communication reference used to receive the request;

establishing the connection between the user and the advertiser using the contact information determined from the communication reference;

identifying the content provider based on the communication reference used to receive the request; and

compensating the content provider per the establishing of the connection between the user and the advertiser.

20. A data processing system, comprising:

a web server to receive a request for an advertisement in reference to a document provided to a user by a content provider;

a backend server coupled to the web server to identify the advertisement based at least in part on relevancy of the advertisement to a content of the document and to associate a communication reference with the advertisement and the content provider, the communication reference to be used to request a connection provider to establish a connection for real time communications between the user and an advertiser of the advertisement, the web server to provide the advertisement and the communication reference for inclusion in the document for presentation to the user;

a session border controller to interface with a packet switched network; and

one or more telecommunication servers coupled to the session border controller and the backend server to receive a connection request from the user via the communication reference, to determine contact information of the advertiser based on the communication reference used to receive the connection request, to identify the content provider based on the communication reference used to receive the connection request, and to establish the connection between the user and the advertiser using the contact information determined from the communication reference;

wherein the content provider is compensated per the establishing of the connection between the user and the advertiser; and

wherein the advertiser is charged an advertisement fee per the establishing of the connection between the user and the advertiser.