INTELLIGENT ADVERTISING BASED ON MOBILE CONTENT

• US 20090125374A1
• Filed: 11/09/2007
• Published: 05/14/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/09/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google Technology Holdings LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Deaton, Juan D., Keeler, Jesse M.
• Granted Patent: US 7,853,475 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 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0212 Chance discounts or incentives
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0243 Comparative campaigns
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

A method (200, 300) of managing mobile context and advertising over a communications network based on the context. The method includes identifying (204) a context (146, 152) associated with a communication sent to or received by a remote unit belonging to the user group of remote units. The method also includes determining (212) whether the identified context is associated with one or more advertisements by querying correlation data (144) to identify advertisements having context that correlates to the identified context. When the identified context is associated with one or more advertisements, the method includes transmitting (214) the one or more advertisements to at least one remote unit belonging to the user group.

Claims

1. A method of advertising to a remote unit belonging to a user group of remote units, the method comprising:

identifying a context associated with a communication sent to or received by a remote unit belonging to the user group of remote units;

determining whether the identified context is associated with one or more advertisements by querying correlation data to identify advertisements having context that correlates to the identified context;

when the identified context is associated with one or more advertisements, transmitting the one or more advertisements to at least one remote unit belonging to the user group.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein transmitting the one or more advertisements comprises transmitting the one or more advertisements to at least one remote unit belonging to the user group that did not send or receive a communication containing the identified context.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein when the identified context is associated with one or more advertisements, the method further comprises updating context statistics.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein before determining whether the identified context is associated with one or more advertisements, the method comprises:

determining whether the identified context is contained in a context index;

when the identified context is not contained in the context index, determining whether the identified context is contained in a candidate list; and

when the identified context is not contained in the candidate list, adding the identified context to the candidate list.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein when the identified context is contained in the candidate list, updating context statistics.

6. A method of managing contexts in a communication system comprising:

determining how frequently a selected context is identified;

when identification of the selected context is increasing,

determining whether frequency of use of the context is equal to a first threshold,

when frequency of use of the context is equal to the first threshold,

adding the selected context to a context index; and

linking the selected context to one or more contexts already in the context index.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

determining whether frequency of use of the context is equal to a second threshold,

when frequency of use of the context is equal to the second threshold, alerting an advertiser of a new context trend.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein when identification of the selected context is not increasing, determining whether use of the selected context is equal to the second threshold;

and when frequency of use of the context is equal to the second threshold, removing the selected context from the context index.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising determining whether use of the selected context is equal to the first threshold;

and when frequency of use of the context is equal to the first threshold, removing the selected context from a candidate list.

10. A server for managing contexts in a communication system comprising:

a communication manager for receiving a plurality of contexts associated with communications between a plurality of remote units of a user group;

a correlation engine coupled to the communication manager for generating correlation data by correlating a first context of the plurality of contexts with a second context of the plurality of contexts when the first and second contexts are associated with one another;

a search engine for identifying an advertisement containing context data that correlates to at least one context of the plurality of contexts; and

wherein the communication manager communicates the identified advertisement to a remote unit of the plurality of remote units of the user group.

11. The server of claim 10 wherein the correlation engine further identifies trends in usage of contexts of the plurality of contexts and generates data representing the trends.

12. The server of claim 11 wherein trends in usage of context comprises frequency of use of contexts of the plurality of contexts.

13. The server of claim 11 wherein the correlation engine assigns a strength value to the correlation of the first context and second context, the strength value representing one of

a frequency in which the first and second contexts are both present in a communication between the remote units of the user group and how far apart in time the first and second contexts are both present in a communication between the remote units of the user group.

14. The server of claim 10 wherein the correlation engine periodically updates the correlation data.