USE OF PERSONALIZED POINTS OF REFERENCE IN SELECTING ADVERTISEMENTS SHOWN TO USERS

• US 20120158507A1
• Filed: 12/17/2010
• Published: 06/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Preece, Scott E., Thrapp, Haley
• Granted Patent: US 9,972,029 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.54
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search

Abstract

Disclosed is a method and system for selecting targeted advertisements based on a user'"'"'s personal points of reference. The personal points of reference identify user specific locations of interest based at least on geographic locations. In order to determine which advertisements are relevant to a user'"'"'s personal point of reference, the advertisements served by an advertising server contain metadata appended therein. The ad metadata is correlated with locations, and provides geographical sensitivity to specific locations. Thus, advertisements are matched to points of reference based on geo-location data. When the advertising server is presented with a user'"'"'s personal point of reference, the ad server compiles the point of reference'"'"'s geo-location data against the ad metadata, and determines if there is a match. Upon a match being identified, the advertisement associated with the ad metadata is served to the user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, at a server computer over a network, a user search request for content;

identifying, via the server computer, said content on the network based upon the user search request;

searching, via the server computer, a user database for a user defined personal point of reference comprising a location of interest to the user that corresponds to a geographic location identified by the user;

selecting, via the server computer, said personal point of reference;

communicating a search request to an advertisement database to identify an advertisement that contains ad information that is relevant to the personal point of reference; and

facilitating serving, via the server computer, said identified advertisement with said content to said user over the network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said user database comprises:

a listing comprising a plurality of user defined personal points of reference associated with the user, wherein the listed personal points of reference are organized according to a priority designation that reflects the level of interest the user has for each.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said selecting said personal point of reference further comprises:

selecting a personal point of reference from said listing, wherein said selected personal point of reference is designated as having top priority in the listing of personal points of reference.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said selecting the personal point of reference from said listing is based upon a proximity designation set by the user, the proximity designation identifying a radius around the geographic location identified by the selected personal point of reference as part of the geographic location identified by the personal point of reference.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said search request communication to the advertisement database further comprises:

identifying advertisement metadata stored in the advertisement database that is associated with the advertisement.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said advertisement metadata comprises:

geographical location data; and

data corresponding to attributes of the associated advertisement.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprises:

identifying advertisement metadata that corresponds to a similar location identified by the personal point of reference, wherein the advertisement metadata and the personal point of reference identify the same geographical location; and

retrieving the advertisement associated with the advertisement metadata.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said identified content comprises:

a content page for visible display; and

page attributes defined by the content page that dictate the display of the content within the content page.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said advertisement is fit within the content page based upon the page attributes defined by the content page.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the content and the advertisement are compiled within a web browser, wherein the web browser facilitates visibly display of the content page and the advertisement, the advertisement display being contingent upon said page attributes.

11. A computer-readable storage medium tangibly encoded with computer executable instructions, which when executed by at least one processor of a computing device, perform a method comprising:

receiving, at a server computer over a network, a user search request for content;

identifying, via the server computer, said content on the network based upon the user search request;

searching, via the server computer, a user database for a user defined personal point of reference comprising a location of interest to the user that corresponds to a geographic location identified by the user;

selecting, via the server computer, said personal point of reference;

communicating a search request to an advertisement database to identify an advertisement that contains ad information that is relevant to the personal point of reference; and

facilitating serving, via the server computer, said identified advertisement with said content to said user over the network.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein said user database comprises:

a listing comprising a plurality of user defined personal points of reference associated with the user, wherein the listed personal points of reference are organized according to a priority designation that reflects the level of interest the user has for each.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein said selecting said personal point of reference further comprises:

selecting a personal point of reference from said listing, wherein said selected personal point of reference is designated as having top priority in the listing of personal points of reference, wherein said selecting the personal point of reference from said listing is further based upon a proximity designation set by the user, the proximity designation identifying a radius around the geographic location identified by the selected personal point of reference as part of the geographic location identified by the personal point of reference.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein said search request to the advertisement database further comprises:

identifying advertisement metadata associated with advertisements stored in the advertisement database, said advertising metadata comprises geographical location data and data corresponding to attributes of the associated advertisement.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, further comprises:

identifying advertisement metadata that corresponds to a similar location identified by the selected personal point of reference, wherein the advertisement metadata and the personal point of reference identify the same geographical location; and

selecting the advertisement associated with the advertisement metadata that corresponds with the personal point of reference.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein said identified content comprises:

a content page for visible display; and

page attributes that dictate the display of the content within the content page, wherein said selected advertisement is fit within the content page based upon the page attributes defined by the content page.

17. A system of an ad serving engine comprising:

a plurality of processors;

a request retrieval module, implemented by one of said plurality of processors, configured to receive a user request for a content page;

a content page retrieval module, implemented by one of said plurality of processors, configured to retrieve the requested content page from a network;

a point of reference retrieval module, implemented by one of said plurality of processors, configured to search a user database for personal points of reference associated with the user, the user database is associated with a computer-readable storage medium;

the personal point of reference further configured to select one personal point of reference from the user database, said selection based upon a predefined order set by the user;

an ad retrieval module, implemented by one of said plurality of processors, configured to compile the content page retrieved by the content page retrieval module and the selected personal point of reference identified by the point of reference retrieval module;

an ad selection module, implemented by one of said plurality of processors, configured to search for and select at least one advertisement that correlates with the selected personal point of reference, said selection additionally based upon specifications defined by the retrieved content page; and

the ad serving engine configured to facilitate presentation of the selected advertisement with the retrieved content page to a user.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the user database comprises:

a profile cache for storing geographic location information for each personal point of reference; and

a user profile store for storing location data for each personal point of reference, the location data matching with the geographic location information and identifying attributes of the personal point of reference.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the profile cache stores partial geographic location information for each of the personal points of reference, wherein complete geographic location information is determined upon the ad selection module searching for advertisements.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the advertising database comprises:

an advertisement store for storing advertisements; and

an advertisement cache for storing advertisement metadata associated with the advertisements stored in the advertisement store, said advertisement metadata comprising information relating to attributes of the associated advertisements and geographic location information.