UPDATING CONTENTS OF ASYNCHRONOUSLY REFRESHABLE WEBPAGES

• US 20090070190A1
• Filed: 09/12/2007
• Published: 03/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Zhigu Holdings Limited
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Yun, Hyejin, Gorty, Sunitha, Malik, Mansoor, Tomlin, Scott, Masterson, Mark
• Granted Patent: US 8,131,591 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0225 Avoiding frauds
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0263 based upon Internet or website rating

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention provide ways to update and permit third-party advertising content of a webpage developed using Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (“AJAX”) techniques. An illustrative method includes registering a set of possible triggering events that can invoke an advertisement-update process, registering advertisement containers (portions of the webpage that can present the advertisements), receiving an indication that a triggering event has occurred, identifying (in some cases) advertisement containers whose advertisement content is to be updated, accessing third-party advertisement data that is stored outside of the domain of the webpage to receive the fresh advertising content, and presenting the fresh advertising content in the one or more advertisement containers.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method of enabling advertisement data associated with a second domain to source advertisements on a webpage that is associated with a first domain even when the webpage includes a first portion that can be updated independently of updating a second portion, the method comprising:

while programmatic code is being processed to render the webpage, beginning an initialization process that comprises,

(1) identifying a set of advertisement containers, which are portions of the webpage that can present the advertisements, and

(2) identifying a set of possible triggering events that, when at least one triggering event occurs, triggers an advertisement-update process that is capable of updating all advertisements of the webpage, including those in the first and second portions; and

incident to the occurring of the at least one triggering event, initiating an advertisement-update process that comprises,

(1) from within the webpage, dynamically creating an inline frame (“

iframe”

) that is to be presented as a portion of the webpage, the iframe having a set of attributes associated therewith,

(2) retrieving at least a portion of the advertising data to present an advertisement in the iframe, and

(3) presenting the advertisement in the iframe.

2. The media of claim 1, wherein the programmatic code is processed by a network browser.

3. The media of claim 1, wherein the advertisements that can presented in the advertisement containers include one or more of:

still-image content;

video content;

audio content;

programmatic animations;

form functionality;

an HTML representation;

a Javascript representation; and

combinations of the same.

4. The media of claim 1, wherein the set of possible triggering events includes one or more of:

a user action;

a time-based event; and

a programmatic happening such as an occurrence of an N^th frame of a video.

5. The media of claim 4, wherein the user action includes one or more of:

clicking on an object that is in the first of second portion of the webpage;

initiating a refresh process associated with the first of second portion of the webpage;

indicating a completion of inputting data in the first of second portion of the webpage;

indicating that an object in the first of second portion of the webpage is to be focused upon;

activating a link in the first of second portion of the webpage.

6. The media of claim 4, wherein the a time-based event includes an expiration of predetermined amount of time.

7. The media of claim 1, wherein the iframe is an HTML element that makes possible embedding another HTML document inside a first document.

8. The media of claim 1, wherein presenting the advertisement in the iframe includes presenting the advertisement in a screen area previously occupied by one or more of the advertisement containers.

9. The media of claim 1, wherein presenting the advertisement in the iframe includes removing data that was previously occupied by a control that is being replaced by the iframe.

10. The media of claim 9, wherein the removing data includes removing data from memory of a computing device being used to facilitate display of the advertisement.

11. The media of claim 1, wherein the attributes of the iframe include one or more of:

a location indication that indicates a location on the webpage;

a size indication ; and

a viewable attribute that allows the advertisement to be hidden.

12. The media of claim 1, further comprising providing for the modification of the sat of attributes of the iframe.

13. The media of claim 12, wherein providing for the modification of the sat of attributes is accomplished by creating the iframe in a security context that is common to the webpage.

14. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method of enabling advertisement data that is stored outside of a first domain to source advertisements on a webpage that is within the first domain even when the webpage includes a first portion that can be updated independently of updating a second portion, the method comprising:

registering a set of possible triggering events that can invoke an advertisement-update process;

registering a set of advertisement containers, which are portions of the webpage that can present the advertisements;

receiving an indication that a triggering event has occurred, the triggering event being one of the set of possible triggering events;

identifying one or more of the advertisement containers whose advertisement content is to be updated, thereby defining a set of identified advertisement containers;

accessing the advertisement data that is stored outside of the first domain to receive the fresh advertising content;

presenting the fresh advertising content in the one or more advertisement containers.

15. The media of claim 14, wherein registering the set of possible triggering events includes registering the set with a portion of programmatic code that is launched while the webpage is initially rendered.

16. The media of claim 15, wherein registering the set of advertisement containers includes registering the set with the portion of programmatic code that is launched while the webpage is initially rendered.

17. The media of claim 14, wherein the set of possible triggering events includes one or more of:

a user action; and

a time-based event; and

a programmatic happening such as an occurrence of an N^th frame of a video.

18. The media of claim 14, wherein the fresh advertising content is the same advertising content that was presented prior to updating.

19. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method of updating third-party advertising content of a webpage developed using Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (“

AJAX”

) techniques, the method comprising;

during an initial rendering of the webpage,

(1) registering a set of objects that can be used to present advertising data, and

(2) registering a set of triggering events that may trigger an update process that updates at least a portion of the webpage but not at least one other portion of the webpage;

when a triggering event occurs, dynamically creating at least one inline frame (iframe) within at least one of the set of objects of the webpage that can receive advertising content; and

automatically populating the iframe with third-party advertising that is stored outside of a domain in which the webpage resides, the iframe being within a security context that is common to the webpage.

20. The media of claim 19, further comprising facilitating a modification of a set of attributes associated with the dynamically created iframe, wherein the set of attributes includes one or more of:

a size-related indication;

a visible-attributes indication;

a z-level indication; and

a location-related indication.