TECHNIQUES FOR INTEGRATING EXTERNAL CONTENT FROM ADVERTISING SERVICES INTO CLIENT APPLICATIONS

• US 20110093347A1
• Filed: 10/15/2010
• Published: 04/21/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Iconix Incorporated (Matthews Group LLC)
• Original Assignee: Iconix Incorporated (Matthews Group LLC)
• Inventors: Sachtjen, Scott A., Lindblom, Eric Robert
• Granted Patent: US 10,248,958 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.72
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0276 Advertisement creation

Abstract

Techniques for integrating advertising content into client applications are presented. Events occurring within client applications are monitored and when a predefined event is encountered and external advertising service is consulted for acquiring external content. The external content is then integrated into one or more portions of presentations associated with the client applications.

Claims

1. A processor-implemented method, comprising:

identifying, by a processor, a message being requested by a client messaging application of a user that is to have external content vended to the message;

acquiring, by the processor, the external content that is external to both the message and the client messaging application, the external content linked with at least a portion of the message;

integrating, by the processor, the presentation of the external content based on selective actions taken by the user within the client application with respect to the message; and

providing, by the processor, tracking information to an external advertising service that supplied the external content.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising, recording, by the processor, the tracking information as a log having information for one or more of:

a service identifier for a service from which the external content was acquired, a user identifier for the user receiving the message, a message identifier for the message, a content identifier for the external content, and a sender identifier for an original sender of the message.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein recording further includes setting, by the processor, the log as a cookie on a client of the user.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein recording further includes supplying the log to the existing advertising service to track the external content vending to the message.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying further includes consulting the existing advertising service with a message identifier for the message to identify the message for having the external content vended to the message.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein acquiring further includes obtaining the external content or a reference to the external content from the existing advertising service, where the external content is an advertisement.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein integrating further includes presenting portions of the external content based on particular actions taken by the user with respect to the message within the client messaging application.

8. A processor-implemented method, comprising:

detecting, by a processor, an action taken by a user with respect to a portion of a message being received by the user within a client messaging application;

combining, by the processor, external content to present with the portion of the message based on the action taken by the user, the external content acquired from an external and existing advertising service; and

facilitating, by the processor, the tracking of the external content combined with the portion of the message for the external and existing advertising service.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising:

detecting, by the processor, a subsequent action taken by the user;

to delete the message or to classify the message as spam; and

reporting, by the processor, the subsequent action taken by the user to the external and existing advertising service.

10. The method of claim 8 further comprising, changing how the external content is combined with different portions of the message and what aspects of the external content are presented with those different potions based on subsequent actions taken by the user with respect to the message.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein detecting further includes recognizing the message as a particular message that is to have the external content based on one or more of:

identifying attributes of the message and consulting with the external and existing advertising service.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein detecting further includes recognizing the action as focus being placed over the portion of the message while the user views the message in a list view of the client messaging application.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein combining further includes generating a popup view for the message that includes additional external content and operations for the user to perform within the popup view, the popup view not originally part of the client messaging application.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein combining further includes integrating different external content acquired from the external and existing advertising service based on a response action taken by the user on the external content combined with the portion of the message.

15. A processor-implemented method, comprising:

monitoring, by a processor, events occurring in a client application of a user;

identifying, by the processor, a predefined event;

consulting, by the processor, an external advertising service with identifying information for the predefined event, the client application, and the user;

acquiring, by the processor, advertising content from the external advertising service that was customized by the external advertising service for the predefined event, the client application, and the user; and

instructing, by the processor, the client application to integrate the advertising content into portions of presentations occurring within the client application for consumption by the user.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein monitoring further includes monitoring events for a client application associated with one or more of:

a client messaging application, a client streaming video application, and a client game application.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein consulting further includes providing a context for the predefined event and/or a profile for the user to the external advertising service to use in customizing the advertising content for the user.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein providing further includes analyzing cookies on a client of the user to generate the profile.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein acquiring further includes caching the advertising content within a client for the client application to reuse when the predefined event is re-encountered by the client application.

20. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

consulting, by the processor, the external advertising service a second time when the predefined event is detected a second time for the user within the client application;

obtaining, by the processor, different advertising content in response to a second occurrence of the predefined event; and

instructing, by the processor, the client application to integrate the different advertising content into the portions of the presentations occurring within the client application for consumption by the user.