Image Advertising System

• US 20080319844A1
• Filed: 06/22/2007
• Published: 12/25/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hua, Xian-Sheng, Li, Shipeng, Shum, Heung-Yeung (Harry)
• Application Number:
  US11/767,410
• Publication Number:
  US 20080319844A1
• 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 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for image advertising. In one implementation, an image owner registers an image-bearing medium, such as a website, device, email account, messenger account, printing service, etc., including proprietary images, with a service. The service may connect with the image-bearing medium, for example, by using a crawler to find and analyze images and surrounding text on the website or other image-bearing medium. Then a relevancy engine automatically matches each candidate image with one or more relevant advertisements, based on criteria such as visual image content, surrounding text, and textual/thematic description of the image from an automatic content analysis. The matched advertisements are displayed within or near the associated image, whenever the image is displayed or accessed, e.g., on the Internet. The advertisement owner may pay the image owner a monetary compensation, which in one implementation depends on the number of viewers who access the image. The systems and methods may be applied wherever images are displayed, copied, or transferred.

Claims

1. A computer-executable method, comprising:

receiving an identity of an image from an image owner;

determining a content associated with the image;

matching an advertisement with the image based on the content; and

displaying the advertisement with the image when the image is accessed.

2. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein receiving the identity of the image includes registering the image with an online service that performs the determining, the matching, and the displaying.

3. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein receiving the identity of the image comprises registering a website, a device, an email service, an instant messenger account, or a printing service that contains or uses the image with a service that performs the determining, the matching, and the displaying.

4. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein receiving the identity of the image includes one of:

crawling a website or connecting to one of a device, email service, printing service, or messenger service registered by the image owner to find the image and to find text and images associated with the image.

5. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein determining a content of the image includes automatically determining a theme of the image.

6. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein determining a content of the image includes automatically mapping a visual content of the image to a textual description.

7. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein determining a content of the image includes one of:

detecting a visual object in the image or recognizing the visual object in the image.

8. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein determining a content of the image includes determining a segmentation of the image for placing the advertisement in a non-salient region of the image.

9. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 8, wherein determining a segmentation of the image includes evaluating an image location for placing a hyperlink.

10. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein matching an advertisement with the image includes determining a relevance of the advertisement to the image based on at least one of:

a visual feature of the image;

a visual object recognized in the image;

a theme detected in the image;

a theme assigned to the image;

an annotation assigned to the image;

a description of the image mapped from a visual feature of the image;

a text string near the image;

or

a different image near the image.

11. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein matching an advertisement with the image includes determining a relevance of the advertisement to the image based on a user interest associated with the image.

12. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein matching an advertisement with the image includes determining a relevance of the advertisement to the image based on a budget of an advertiser associated with the advertisement.

13. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein matching an advertisement with the image includes selecting whether to merge the advertisement with the image, whether to overlay the advertisement with the image, and whether to juxtapose the advertisement nearby the image.

14. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein displaying the advertisement with the image includes displaying the advertisement as one of:

a still text, a still image, an animation, a flying text, a disappearing text, a fading image, a moving image, a video, a hyperlink, an icon, or a sound.

15. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, wherein displaying the advertisement with the image includes embedding a remote agent in one of a website, device, email service, messenger service, or printing service hosting the image to embed the advertisement in the image.

16. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 1, further comprising paying the image owner for displaying the advertisement with the image when the image is accessed.

17. The computer-executable method as recited in claim 16, further comprising tracking a number of times the image is accessed to pay the image owner in relation to the number.

18. An online service, comprising:

a registration framework to register an image-bearing medium of an image owner with a service;

a content analyzer to determine a content associated with an image in the medium;

an advertisement assignment engine of the service to match an advertisement with the image based on the content; and

an advertisement delivery engine to display the advertisement with the image when the image is accessed.

19. The online service as recited in claim 18, wherein the advertisement assignment engine determines a relevance of the advertisement to the image based on at least one of:

a visual feature of the image;

a visual object recognized in the image;

a theme detected in the image;

a theme assigned to the image;

an annotation assigned to the image;

a description of the image mapped from a visual feature of the image;

a text string near the image;

a different image near the image;

a user interest associated with the image; and

a budget of an advertiser associated with the advertisement.

20. A computer system, comprising:

means for receiving a proprietary image;

means for associating an advertisement with the proprietary image; and

means for compensating an owner of the proprietary image for displaying the advertisement with the image.