Systems and Methods to Provide Alternative Connections for Real Time Communications

• US 20090086958A1
• Filed: 05/30/2008
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2007
• 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
• Granted Patent: US 8,554,617 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/265.90
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42 Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers specially adapted for wireless communication networks H04W4/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4878 Advertisement messages

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses to provide options for alternative connections in response to customer requesting for connections to advertisers for real time communications. One embodiment includes: providing an advertisement of a first advertiser for presentation to a customer, the advertisement including a reference to be used to request a connection server to provide a telephonic connection between the first advertiser and the customer; receiving a request made via the reference included in the advertisement for a telephonic connection between the first advertiser and the customer; determining a status of the first advertiser at a time of the request; and presenting an option to make an alternative connection for the customer based on the determined status.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

providing an advertisement of a first advertiser for presentation to a customer, the advertisement including a reference to be used to request a connection server to provide a telephonic connection between the first advertiser and the customer;

receiving a request made via the reference included in the advertisement for a telephonic connection between the first advertiser and the customer;

determining a status of the advertisement of the first advertiser at a time of the request; and

presenting an option to make an alternative connection for the customer based on the determined status.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request is made via the customer initiating a telephonic connection to the connection server using the reference included in the advertisement.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the reference included in the advertisement comprises a telephone number of the connection server with an extension, a telephone number of the connection server without an extension, a session initiation protocol (SIP) uniform resource identifier (URI), a user identifier of the connection server in an instant messaging network, or a user identifier of the connection server in a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertisement includes a link to the connection server;

and when the link is selected, the reference included in the advertisement is transmitted to the connection sever to request the connection server to initiate a call to the customer to provide a telephonic connection between the first advertiser and the customer.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting the option to make an alternative connection comprises:

determining an alternative time based on a schedule of the first advertiser;

presenting an option to arrange a callback to the customer at the determined alternative time.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the first advertiser is to be charged an advertisement fee in response to a connection established between the first advertiser and the customer;

and wherein the alternative time is determined further based on a budget of the first advertiser.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein when the status of the advertisement of the first advertiser indicates that the advertisement is paused at the time of the request for telephonic connection between the first advertiser and the customer, the presenting the option to make an alternative connection comprises:

presenting an option to connect the customer to a second advertiser instead of the first advertiser.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

responsive to a selection of the option to connect the customer to the second advertiser, establishing a connection between the customer and the second advertiser; and

charging the second advertiser an advertisement fee in response to establishing the connection between the customer and the second advertiser.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

pausing the advertisement of the first advertiser when a performance of the advertisement is below a threshold.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

determining a ratio between a number of presentations of the advertisement of the first advertiser and a number of requests telephonic connections to the first advertiser resulted from the number of presentations of the advertisement of the first advertiser; and

evaluating the performance of the advertisement based on the determined ratio.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

pausing the advertisement of the first advertiser when a budget limit for the advertisement of the first advertiser is reached.

12. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

pausing the advertisement of the first advertiser when the time of the request is outside a scheduled time period of the first advertiser.

13. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

identifying an advertisement of a second advertiser based on the advertisement of the first advertiser.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the advertisement of the second advertiser is identified based on matching category of advertisements and geographic service area of advertisements.

15. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

connecting the customer to an interactive voice response (IVR) system to identify the second advertiser.

16. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

presenting a further option to connect the customer to the first advertiser even when the advertisement of the first advertiser is paused at the time of the request.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

responsive to a selection of the further option to connect the customer to the first advertiser, establishing a connection between the customer and the first advertiser without charging the first advertiser an advertisement fee.

18. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

pausing the advertisement of the first advertiser in response to a request from the first advertiser.

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

providing an advertisement of a first advertiser for presentation to a customer, the advertisement including a reference to be used to request a connection server to provide a telephonic connection between the first advertiser and the customer;

receiving a request made via the reference included in the advertisement for a telephonic connection between the first advertiser and the customer;

determining a status of the first advertiser at a time of the request; and

presenting an option to make an alternative connection for the customer based on the determined status.

20. A system, comprising:

means for providing an advertisement of a first advertiser for presentation to a customer, the advertisement including a reference to be used to request a connection server to provide a telephonic connection between the first advertiser and the customer;

means for receiving a request made via the reference included in the advertisement for a telephonic connection between the first advertiser and the customer;

means for determining a status of the first advertiser at a time of the request; and

means for presenting an option to make an alternative connection for the customer based on the determined status.