Content distribution system and method

• US 20110320529A1
• Filed: 06/24/2011
• Published: 12/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LeftsnRights, Inc.
• Original Assignee: LeftsnRights, Inc.
• Inventors: Mentchoukov, Nikolai, Rowan, James Warren
• Granted Patent: US 8,832,559 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04845 for image manipulation, e.g. dragging, rotation, expansion or change of colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04847 Interaction techniques to control parameter settings, e.g. interaction with sliders or dials
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H10N 30/01 Manufacture or treatment

Abstract

An application displaying primary content, such as a webpage, may include unused space. The unused space may exist within the application displaying the primary content (e.g., within the browser window), or on other portions of the display (e.g., outside of the browser window). The unused space is identified and leveraged to display secondary content on the client display along with the primary content. The secondary content may be adaptable to conform to different sizes and/or configurations of the unused space. The secondary content may be updated as the user interacts with elements on the client display.

Claims

1. A method for leveraging unused space on a client display of a client device, the method comprising:

receiving primary content to render on the client display;

identifying unused space on the client display, wherein the identified unused space exists on the client display when the primary content is rendered on the client display; and

displaying secondary content within the identified unused space on the client display.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the unused space is identified before the primary content is rendered on the client display.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the unused space comprises pre-rendering the primary content before the primary content is rendered on the client display.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating a virtual board representing the identified unused space; and

displaying the secondary content within the virtual board.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

generating a placement request that specifies a size of the virtual board; and

receiving a placement configured to display the secondary content in the virtual board in response to the placement request.

6. The method of claim 5, the method further comprising:

accessing placement state information from a storage location of the client device, the placement state information comprising one of a viewer identifier and a placement queue; and

including the placement state information in the placement request.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing a placement queue stored on a storage location of the client device;

generating a placement request comprising a placement identifier of the placement queue; and

receiving a placement configured to render the secondary content within the unused space in response to the placement request.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising updating the placement queue stored on the storage location of the client device in response to rendering the placement.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing a manager tag included in the primary content, the manager tag comprising an account identifier; and

receiving a manager tag application in response to accessing the manager tag.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the manager tag application comprises one or more secondary content parameters set by a publisher of the primary content, and wherein the secondary content parameters comprise one of demographic parameters, content rendering parameters, and conditional parameters.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

generating a placement request comprising one or more of the secondary content parameters; and

receiving a placement configured to render the secondary content within the unused space in response to the placement request.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the unused space comprises one of pre-rendering the primary content, determining a position of a browser application on the client display, determining a size of a browser application on the client display, determining a viewable area of the client display, determining an alignment of the primary content, determining a focus of one or more applications on the client display, and determining a focus of one or more tabs of a browser application.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting a change in the client display; and

identifying unused space on the client display and displaying secondary content within the identified unused space in response to the detecting.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the change comprises one of scrolling, positioning an application on the client display, changing a focus on the client display, interacting with a user interface element on the client display, moving a mouse cursor on the client display, and resizing an application on the client display.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising adapting a layout of the secondary content in response to a size and proportion of the identified unused space.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the secondary content is configured to adapt to a size and proportion of the identified unused space.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions to cause a computing device to perform a method for leveraging unused space on a client display of a client device, the method comprising:

receiving primary content to render on the client display;

identifying unused space on the client display, wherein the identified unused space exists on the client display when the primary content is rendered on the client display;

creating a virtual board representing the identified unused space; and

displaying secondary content within the virtual board on the client display.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the unused space is identified before the primary content is rendered on the client display, and wherein identifying the unused space comprises pre-rendering the primary content before the primary content is rendered on the client display.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, the method further comprising:

accessing a placement queue from a storage location of the client device;

generating a placement request comprising the placement queue;

receiving a placement configured to display the secondary content in the virtual board in response to the placement request; and

updating the placement queue stored on the storage location of the client device in response to rendering the placement.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprising:

accessing a manager tag included in the primary content, the manager tag comprising an account identifier;

receiving a manager tag application in response to accessing the manager tag, wherein the manager tag application comprises one or more secondary content parameters set by a publisher of the primary content, and wherein the secondary content parameters comprise one of demographic parameters, content rendering parameters, and conditional parameters;

generating a placement request comprising one or more of the secondary content parameters; and

receiving a placement configured to render the secondary content within the unused space in response to the placement request.

21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein identifying the unused space comprises one of pre-rendering the primary content, determining a position of a browser application on the client display, determining a size of a browser application on the client display, determining a viewable area of the client display, determining an alignment of the primary content, determining a focus of one or more applications on the client display, and determining a focus of one or more tabs of a browser application.

22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprising:

detecting a change in the client display, the change comprising one of scrolling, positioning an application on the client display, changing a focus on the client display, interacting with a user interface element on the client display;

moving a mouse cursor on the client display, and resizing an application on the client display; and

updating a virtual board displaying secondary content on the client display in response to the detecting.

23. A system for leveraging unused space on a client display, comprising:

a content distribution service comprising;

a network interface to communicatively couple the content distribution service to a network;

a tag management module to generate and transmit a tag manager application to a client device in response to a request from the client device, wherein the tag manager application is configured to,

identify unused space on a display of the client device;

create a virtual board representing the unused space; and

generate a placement request corresponding to the virtual board; and

a placement module to select and transmit a placement to the client device in response to a placement request from the client device, the placement selected based upon one of a placement queue of the placement request, a demographic parameter of the placement request, and a content rendering parameter of the placement request.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the placement comprises secondary content configured to adapt to a size and proportion of the virtual board of the placement request.

25. The system of claim 23, further comprising a reporting module to track placements provided to client devices over the network.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the reporting module verifies that the placements provided to the client devices were rendered by the client devices.