METHODS FOR SERVING INTERACTIVE CONTENT TO A USER

• US 20180211692A1
• Filed: 03/27/2018
• Published: 07/26/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yieldmo, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Yieldmo, Inc.
• Inventors: Doherty, Connor Francis, Goligorsky, David Michael, Sprockett, Shawn, Wu, Eric (Ge), Bao, Yiming, Silvernight, Firecrow, Sebag, David
• Granted Patent: US 10,832,729 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04812 Interaction techniques based on cursor appearance or behaviour, e.g. being affected by the presence of displayed objects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/005 Reproducing at a different information rate from the information rate of recording for television signals H04N5/783
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/031 Electronic editing of digitised analogue information signals, e.g. audio or video signals
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/036 Insert-editing
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/102 Programmed access in sequence to addressed parts of tracks of operating record carriers access by moving the head G11B3/08, G11B5/54, G11B7/085, G11B21/022; by moving the record carrier G11B15/005, G11B17/005, by driving of both record carrier and head G11B15/1816
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/11 by using information not detectable on the record carrier
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/3081 used signal is a video-frame or a video-field (P.I.P)
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/431 Generation of visual interfaces for content selection or interaction; Content or additional data rendering
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4333 Processing operations in response to a pause request
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47217 for controlling playback functions for recorded or on-demand content, e.g. using progress bars, mode or play-point indicators or bookmarks specific graphical features in visual interfaces H04N21/4312
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/482 End-user interface for program selection broadcast systems using EPGs H04H60/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02

Abstract

One variation of a method for serving interactive content to a user includes, at a visual element inserted into a document accessed by a computing device: loading a first frame from a digital video; in response to a scroll-down event that moves the visual element upward from a bottom of a window rendered on the computing device toward a top of the window, seeking from the first frame through a subset of frames in the digital video in a first direction at a rate corresponding to a scroll rate of the scroll-down event, the subset of frames spanning a duration of the digital video corresponding to a length of the scroll-down event; and, in response to termination of the scroll-down event with the visual element remaining in view within the window, playing the digital video forward from a last frame in the subset of frames in the digital video.

Claims

1. A method for serving an interactive advertisement to a user, the method comprising:

at an initial time, at a computer system affiliated with an advertising platform;

accessing a digital video comprising digital advertising content;

selecting a subset of frames from the digital video;

compiling the subset of frames into a video file;

at a visual element inserted into a window rendered at a computing device distinct from the computer system;

rendering a first frame, in the video file, within the visual element; and

in response to a scroll event that moves the visual element within the window by more than a threshold distance in a first direction, replacing the first frame with a second frame, in the video file, in the visual element; and

characterizing engagement of the user with the visual element based on characteristics of scroll events occurring at the computing device while the visual element is rendered within the window.

2. The method of claim 1:

wherein replacing the first frame with the second frame in the visual element comprises indexing from the first frame to the second frame, the second frame succeeding the first frame in the digital video, within the window in response to the scroll event that moves the visual element within the window by more than the threshold distance in an upward direction; and

further comprising indexing from the second frame to the first frame within the window in response to a second scroll event that moves the visual element within the window by more than the threshold distance in a downward direction opposite the upward direction.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein rendering the first frame within the visual element comprises, in response to an initial scroll event that moves the visual element into view in the window, rendering the first frame within the visual element.

4. The method of claim 1:

wherein compiling the subset of frames into the video file comprises, at the computer system, compiling the subset of frames into the video file comprising a static image file;

wherein rendering the first frame in the video file within the visual element comprises inserting a first region of the static image file into the visual element, the first region corresponding to the first frame in the subset of frames; and

wherein replacing the first frame with the second frame in the visual element comprises inserting a second region of the static image file into the visual element, the second region corresponding to the second frame in the subset of frames.

5. The method of claim 4:

wherein inserting the first region of the static image file into the visual element comprises;

locating a crop area over the first region of the static image file; and

rendering the first region of the static image file within the crop area in the visual element; and

further comprising;

indexing the crop area over discrete regions of the static image file at a rate proportional to a speed of the scroll event, each discrete region corresponding to a frame in the subset of frames; and

updating the visual element with discrete regions of the static image file contained within the crop area.

6. The method of claim 5:

wherein indexing the crop area over discrete regions of the static image file comprises defining a width of the crop area corresponding to a width of a frame in the digital video; and

wherein updating the visual element with discrete regions of the static image file contained within the crop area comprises, in response to alignment between the crop area and the region in the static image file corresponding to a frame in the video file, updating the visual element with discrete regions of the static image file contained within the crop area.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising animating a transition between the first frame and the second frame within the visual element, a rate of animation of the transition corresponding to a rate of the scroll event.

8. The method of claim 1:

resizing the visual element, at a locked aspect ratio, to fill one of the height and the width of the visual element rendered within the window;

segmenting a height of the window less a height of the visual element into a number of discrete vertical position ranges equal to the number of frames in the video file; and

assigning one unique vertical position of the visual element within the window to each frame of the subset of frames.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising, rendering a portion of the first frame and a portion of the second frame within the visual element in response to the scroll event that moves the visual element within the window by a distance less than a threshold distance and greater than a minimum distance.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein characterizing engagement of the user with the visual element comprises characterizing engagement of the user based on a number of scroll events occurring while the visual element is rendered within the window.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the subset of frames from the digital video comprises selecting a predefined number of frames, from the digital video, corresponding to one second of playback of the digital video at a standard video frame rate.

12. The method of Claim ii, wherein selecting the predefined number of frames from the digital video comprises selecting the predefined number of frames distributed at uniform intervals across a segment of the digital video between two markers manually set along the digital video at the computer system.

13. A method for serving an interactive advertisement to a user, the method comprising

at an initial time, at a computer system affiliated with an advertising platform:

accessing a set of frames comprising digital visual content;

compiling the subset of frames into a container;

at a visual element inserted into a window rendered at a computing device distinct from the computer system;

rendering a first frame, in the container, within the visual element; and

in response to a scroll event that moves the visual element within the window by more than a threshold distance in a first direction, replacing the first frame with a second frame, in the container, in the visual element; and

characterizing engagement of the user with the visual element based on characteristics of scroll events occurring at the computing device while the visual element is rendered within the window.

14. The method of claim 13:

wherein accessing the set of frames comprising digital visual content comprises;

accessing a digital video comprising digital visual content;

selecting the subset of frames from the digital video;

wherein compiling the subset of frames into a container comprises compiling the subset of frames into a video file.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

rendering a mask comprising textual content over the first frame within the visual element;

during the scroll event, maintaining the mask within the visual element; and

rendering the mask over the second frame within the visual element.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein accessing the set of frames comprising digital visual content comprises accessing the set of frames, each frame comprising a digital photographic image.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein characterizing engagement of the user comprises characterizing engagement of the user with the visual element based on a number of frames in the set of frames rendered within the visual element during an interaction.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein characterizing engagement of the user comprises characterizing engagement of the user with the visual element based on a speed of the scroll event relocating the visual element within the window.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising animating a transition between the first frame and the second frame within the visual element, a rate of animation of the transition corresponding to a rate of the scroll event.

20. The method of claim 13:

wherein replacing the first frame with a second frame in the visual element comprises, in response to the scroll event that moves the visual element within the window by a first distance greater than a threshold distance in the first direction, replacing the first frame with a second frame in the visual element;

further comprising, in response to a second scroll event that moves the visual element within the window by the first distance, replacing the second frame with a third frame, succeeding the second frame in the container, in the visual element.