Advertisement tunes and messages

• US 20090132364A1
• Filed: 11/19/2007
• Published: 05/21/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ankit Agarwal
• Original Assignee: Ankit Agarwal
• Inventors: Agarwal, Ankit
• Granted Patent: US 8,484,074 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.610
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0264 based upon schedule
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a method and system for generating revenue by a telecom company and sharing the generated revenue with a subscriber. The telecom company acquires advertisements from one or more of a plurality of advertisers. The advertisements comprise advertisement tunes, text messages, audio messages, or video messages. The telecom company acquires permission from the subscriber for inserting advertisements in phone calls and messaging service messages of the subscriber. The advertisements may be inserted during one of initiation, active state, engaged state and termination of the phone call. Further, the advertisements are inserted at the beginning or the end of the messaging service messages of the subscriber. The revenue generated from advertising by the telecom company is shared with the subscriber through discounts on call charges or through payments of predetermined amount to the subscriber.

Claims

1. A method of generating revenue by a telecom company and sharing said generated revenue with a subscriber, comprising the steps of:

acquiring advertisements from one or more of a plurality of advertisers by said telecom company;

acquiring permission from said subscriber by the telecom company for advertising during communication between the subscriber and a caller over a phone call;

advertising by insertion of said advertisements in said phone call based on said permission from the subscriber;

generating said revenue by collecting advertising charges from said advertisers by the telecom company; and

sharing said generated revenue with the subscriber by the telecom company;

whereby the telecom company shares with the subscriber, the revenue generated by advertising in the phone call of the subscriber.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertisements comprise one of advertisement tunes, text advertisements, audio advertisements, and video advertisements.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said advertising tune comprises one or more of a mandatory message, a tag line, and a short advertisement.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of advertising comprises replacing a ringback tone of the phone call with an advertising tune provided by said advertisers, wherein said phone call is one of a subscriber initiated phone call and a caller initiated phone call.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the advertising tune inserted in said caller initiated phone call is played to a caller prior to receiving the caller initiated call by the subscriber.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the advertising tune inserted in said subscriber initiated phone call is played to the subscriber and a receiver of the subscriber initiated phone call for a predefined period of time.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein said caller needs to listen to the mandatory message of the advertising tune prior to conversing with the subscriber over the caller initiated call.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the subscriber and said receiver need to listen to the mandatory message of the advertising tune prior to conversation on the subscriber initiated call between subscriber and the receiver.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertisements are inserted during one or more of an initiation, an active state, an engaged state, and termination of the phone call.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the advertisements during said active state and engaged state of the phone call are inserted in one of a predefined periodic or an aperiodic time interval.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the advertisements inserted during each of said initiation, said active state, said engaged state, and said termination of the phone call is from one or more of the advertisers.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said advertising charges are determined by the telecom company based on duration of the advertisements and point of insertion of the advertisements in the phone call.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of sharing the generated revenue with the subscriber comprises at least one of offering discounts on call charges and paying a predetermined amount to the subscriber.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said discounts and said payment to the subscriber are determined by the number of phone calls received and initiated by the subscriber.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein said discounts offered on said call charges is at one of a predetermined rate and a variable rate based on the advertisements inserted in the phone calls.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising a step of inserting the advertisements to one of a text short messaging service message, a voice short messaging service message, a multimedia messaging service message, an enhanced messaging service message, and an extended messaging service message of the subscriber, wherein revenue generated by advertising using said messaging service messages is shared with the subscriber.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of advertising comprises offering the subscriber an option of selecting one of a plurality of advertising schemes.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein said advertising schemes comprise:

a random advertising scheme, wherein the telecom company randomly selects the advertisements of the plurality of advertisers to be inserted in the phone calls and messaging service messages of the subscriber;

a one set advertising scheme, wherein the telecom company inserts corporate advertisements of a corporate body in the phone calls and messaging service messages of corporate subscribers, wherein said corporate subscribers are employees of said corporate body; and

a time specific advertising scheme, wherein the telecom company offers time slots to each of the advertisers and the subscribers receive the advertisements of the advertisers in said time slots, wherein said time slots are one of daily, hourly minutely, monthly, and yearly time slots.

19. A system for generating revenue by a telecom company and sharing said generated revenue with a subscriber, comprising:

an advertisement acquisition module for acquiring advertisements from one or more of a plurality of advertisers;

a scheme selection module for selecting one of a plurality of advertising schemes by said subscriber, wherein said advertising schemes are used for advertising on phone calls and messaging service messages of the subscriber;

an advertisement selection engine for selecting said acquired advertisements based on one of said advertising schemes and a profile of the subscriber;

an advertisement insertion module for inserting said selected advertisements in said phone calls and said messaging service messages of the subscriber based on permission of the subscriber; and

a revenue distribution module for determining one of discounts on call charges and payments admissible to the subscriber for permitting said insertion of the advertisements in the phone calls and the messaging service messages of the subscriber.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising an advertisement database for storing the acquired advertisements and a subscriber database for storing said profile of the subscriber.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein said subscriber profile comprises personal preferences of the subscriber, preferred type of advertisements, point of insertion of the advertisements in the phone calls and the messaging service messages, and the advertising scheme selected by the subscriber.

22. The system of claim 19, further comprising a permission acquisition module for acquiring said permission from the subscriber for advertising on the phone calls and the messaging service messages of the subscriber.

23. A computer program product comprising computer executable instructions embodied in a computer-readable medium, wherein said computer program product comprises:

a first computer parsable program code for acquiring advertisements from a plurality of advertisers by a telecom company;

a second computer parsable program code for selecting an appropriate advertisement based on the analysis of subscriber profiles stored in the subscriber database;

a third computer parsable program code for inserting said appropriate advertisements in a phone call based on permission from a subscriber; and

a fourth computer parsable program code for computing the total discount admissible to said subscriber.