SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DISPLAYING CONTEXTUAL ADVERTISEMENTS WITH MEDIA

• US 20100211466A1
• Filed: 05/03/2010
• Published: 08/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kalaboukis, Chris, Clarke-Martin, Steven
• Granted Patent: US 8,219,911 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.530
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

Systems and methods have been developed for displaying contextually relevant advertisements to users as media objects are being rendered. One or more data sources with contextual information for different portions of each media object are maintained. From this contextual information, keywords may be generated and used to locate contextually-related advertisements. The advertisements are selected based on contextual information about the media object in order to match or otherwise be contextually relevant with the media content being rendered. As the subject matter of the media object changes during rendering, different advertisements related to the new context are provided that replace the prior advertisement. The advertisements are displayed in an area that could be used for other purposes when the rendering device is not rendering media objects.

Claims

1-22. -22. (canceled)

23. A method comprising:

receiving, at a server on a network, a request from a user device, the request identifying a portion of a media object;

searching a media object library associated with the server for the media object, said searching comprises identifying at least the portion of the media object stored in the media object library;

parsing the media object, said parsing comprises identifying metadata associated with at least a portion of the stored media object;

storing the metadata in at least one contextual information database associated with a computer-readable storage medium, the contextual information database being associated with the media object library;

matching, via the server, advertisement information stored in an advertisement database with the metadata stored in the contextual information database, said matching is based upon the advertisement information and metadata for the media object relating to relevant data, said advertisement information relating to a specific advertisement; and

transmitting at least the portion of the media object and the advertisement to the user device over the network to the user device, said advertisement being transmitted based on said matching of associate advertisement information and metadata.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein said parsing further comprises:

Identifying portions of media objects based on a granularity.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the granularity is a predetermined time period corresponding to the length of the media object.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the metadata identifies the entire media object.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein the metadata comprises descriptive information for every portion of the media object.

28. The method of claim 23, wherein request from the user device is an automated command request triggered by the rendered media object.

29. The method of claim 23, wherein the media object library and the contextual information database are one hierarchical database.

30. The method of claim 23, wherein the server comprises a plurality of servers on the network.

31. A system comprising:

a plurality of processors;

a media module implemented by at least one of said plurality of processors that retrieves a requested media object from a media object database;

the media module parses and stores metadata associated the media object in at least one contextual information database; and

an advertisement selection module implemented by at least one of said plurality of processors that accesses at least one data source containing contextual information describing portions of the requested media object, selects a different advertisement for each of at least two different portions of the requested media object based on the contextual information describing the at least two different portions stored in the contextual information database, and transmits the different advertisements to a requesting rendering device.

32. The system of claim 31 wherein the at least one data source includes:

a metadata database containing descriptive information describing different portions of the media object.

35. The system of claim 31 wherein the requested media file is an audio file containing music and the at least one data source includes:

a lyric database containing lyrics of the music.

36. The system of claim 31 wherein the requested media file is a video file containing verbal communications and the at least one data source includes:

a closed caption database containing a transcript of the verbal communications associated with different portions of the media file.

37. The system of claim 31 wherein the at least one data source includes:

a time tag database containing keywords associated with different points within the media file.

38. The system of claim 31 wherein the at least one data source includes:

an advertisement database containing advertisements, wherein the advertisements are associated with the descriptive information stored in the metadata database.

39. A graphical user interface visibly displayed on the display of a computing device comprising:

a first display area visibly displayed on the display of the computing device enabling a user to provide a request, the request identifying a portion of the media object;

a second display area visibly displayed on the display of the computing device, the second display area displaying search results, said search results based on a search of a media object library, and identifying at least a portion of the media object stored in the media object library and metadata associated with at least the portion of the media object, wherein the metadata is derived from a contextual database in association with the media object library; and

a third display area visibly displayed on the display of the computing device, the third display area displaying at least a portion of the media object and an advertisement, the advertisement being displayed based on a comparison between advertisement information stored in an advertisement database and the metadata stored in the contextual database.

40. The graphical user interface of claim 39, wherein the advertisement is displayed in a fourth display area.

41. The graphical user interface of claim 40, wherein the fourth display area displaying the advertisement is separate from the third display area.

42. The graphical user interface of claim 40, wherein the fourth display area displaying the advertisement overlaps at least a portion, or displayed within the third display area.

43. The graphical user interface of claim 40, wherein the fourth display area is a pop-up window that appears when displaying the advertisement.

44. The graphical user interface of claim 43, wherein the pop-up fourth display window disappears after rendering the advertisement.

45. The graphical user interface of claim 40, further comprising:

a fifth display area, the fifth display area displays the metadata associated with the portion of the media object being rendered in the third display area.

46. The graphical user interface of claim 40, wherein the metadata associated within the media object is displayed within the third display area while rendering the portion of the media object.

47. The graphical user interface of claim 40, further comprising:

a sixth display area, the fifth display area displays the advertisement information associated with the advertisement being rendered in the third display area.

48. The graphical user interface of claim 40, wherein the advertisement information associated within the advertisement is displayed within the third display area while rendering the portion of the media object.

49. The graphical user interface of claim 40, further comprising:

a seventh display area comprising a virtual tuner through which a user may search for and play virtual media objects over a network, said virtual tuner correlated to the second display area.

50. The graphical user interface of claim 40, further comprising:

an eighth display area comprising a control panel enabling a user to rate the quality of the media being rendered in the third display area.