Tool for Third-Party Creation of Advertisements for a Social Networking System

• US 20120158513A1
• Filed: 12/15/2010
• Published: 06/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Inventors: Schoen, Kent, Kedia, Mihir
• Granted Patent: US 10,083,461 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.66
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0276 Advertisement creation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

A third-party advertisement creator builds a template for an advertisement using a markup language provided by the social networking system. The template may include a function to call information from a user'"'"'s profile as well as a function to perform an action in the social networking system and/or external to the social networking system. An advertiser selects a template, add content to the template to create an advertisement, and then requests that the advertisement be published by the social networking system to a viewing user. At runtime, the social networking system parses the markup language in the advertisement to use tags with the viewing user'"'"'s personal and social information and/or function calls to perform the action (e.g., to make the user a “fan” of a page). This allows personalization of interactive advertisements generated by a third party while protecting the user'"'"'s personal information maintained by the social networking system.

Claims

1. A method for providing advertisements to a user of a social networking system, the method comprising:

receiving at a social networking system one or more template objects from one or more developers, where each template object comprises formatting instructions for an advertisement and an instruction for performing an action in connection with a user of the social networking system;

storing the received templates in a non-transitory computer readable storage medium;

receiving at the social networking system a selection of a template object from an advertiser;

receiving advertisement content from the advertiser in connection with the selected template object;

generating an advertisement using the selected template object and the received advertisement content; and

providing the generated advertisement for display to a user of the social networking system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving a selection of a template object from an advertiser comprises:

receiving a selection of a link from the advertiser using an application on the social networking system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving advertisement content from the advertiser in connection with the template object comprises:

receiving uploaded content from the advertiser using an application on the social networking system; and

receiving a selection of the uploaded content from the advertiser using the application on the social networking system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein combining the selected template object with the advertisement content to generate an advertisement comprises:

obtaining information from an account associated with the user in the social networking system; and

adding that information to the template object.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein combining the selected template object with the advertisement content to generate an advertisement comprises:

parsing source code in the template object to identify a signifier that requests information from an account associated with the user of the social networking system;

adding a tag that retrieves the information from the account associated with the user of the social networking system upon identifying the signifier; and

processing the source code in the template object comprising the tag to generate the advertisement with the retrieved information from the account associated with the user of the social networking system.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the generated advertisement to a user of the social networking system for display comprises:

establishing communication with a client device associated with the user via a web server; and

providing a web page comprising the generated advertisement to the client device for display.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the generated advertisement to a user of the social networking system for display comprises:

establishing communication with a client device associated with the user via a server; and

providing data comprising the generated advertisement to the client device for display.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the generated advertisement to a user of the social networking system for display comprises:

embedding an inline frame in a third-party system associated with the user of the social networking system; and

rendering the generated advertisement in the inline frame in the third-party system for display.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected template object comprises an instruction for performing an action within the social networking system.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected template object comprises an instruction for performing an action outside of the social networking system.

11. A method for providing advertisements to a user of a social networking system, the method comprising:

providing an advertisement generated from a template object to the user of the social networking system for display, the advertisement comprising a call to action and a link to perform an action on an account associated with the user of the social networking system;

receiving a selection of the link in the advertisement from the user;

processing the selection of the link in the advertisement according to a function specified in the template object, the function corresponding to the action performed on the account associated with the user of the social networking system;

modifying the advertisement responsive to the specified function in the template object; and

refreshing the advertisement to indicate that the selection of the link has been processed.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the action performed on the account associated with the user of the social networking system comprises modifying an object in the social networking system according to the call to action in the advertisement.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein processing the selection of the link in the advertisement according to a function specified in the template object comprises modifying the object specified by the function in the template object.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein processing the selection of the link in the advertisement according to the function specified in the template object comprises:

requesting data from a template developer hosting template content objects relied upon by the template object;

receiving the requested data from the template developer; and

combining the received requested data with the function specified in the template object.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein providing an advertisement generated from a template object to the user of the social networking system for display comprises:

establishing communication with a client device associated with the user via a web server; and

providing a web page comprising the generated advertisement to the client device for display.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein providing an advertisement generated from a template object to the user of the social networking system for display comprises:

establishing communication with a client device associated with the user via a server; and

providing data comprising the generated advertisement to the client device for display.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein providing an advertisement generated from a template object to the user of the social networking system for display comprises:

embedding an inline frame in a third-party system associated with the user of the social networking system; and

rendering the generated advertisement in the inline frame in the third-party system for display.

18. A computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium containing a markup language document for being rendered by a web browser application executing on a computer system, the markup language document comprising:

information items encoded in a markup language comprising instructions for rendering information from an external website in a web browser application; and

instructions to a web browser application executing on a computer system to retrieve information associated with a user of a social networking system, the instructions causing the computer system to;

render an advertisement for display on the computer system, the advertisement comprising a selectable link to perform an action on the social networking system,

receive user input from the computer system, and

responsive to the user input, communicate instructions to the social networking system to perform the action on the social networking system.

19. The computer program product of claim 18 comprising a computer-readable storage medium containing a markup language document for being rendered by a web browser application executing on a computer system, the markup language document further comprising:

instructions to a web browser application executing on a computer system to retrieve information associated with a user of a social networking system, the instructions causing the computer system to;

obtain information items about a user account, and incorporate the information into the advertisement.

20. The computer program product of claim 18 comprising a computer-readable storage medium containing a markup language document for being rendered by a web browser application executing on a computer system, the markup language document further comprising:

instructions to a web browser application executing on a computer system to retrieve information associated with a user of a social networking system, the instructions causing the computer system to;

modify the advertisement responsive to the action performed on the social networking system, and

refresh the advertisement to indicate that the user input has been communicated to the social networking system.