Computer system for efficiently selecting and providing information

• US 6,144,944 A
• Filed: 04/22/1998
• Issued: 11/07/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AdForce, Inc. (Steel Partners Holdings LP)
• Original Assignee: Imgis, Inc.
• Inventors: Nawathe, Sandeep A., Kurtzman, Stephen J. II
• Primary Examiner(s): MacDonald, Allen R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Patel, Jagdish
• Application Number:
  US09/064,675
• Time in Patent Office: 930 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705/10, 705/14, 705/26, 707/102, 709/217, 709/219
• US Class Current: 705/14.54
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement

Abstract

A system for selecting and providing information. The system can include an advertisement server that provides selected advertisements in response to a request from a web page server. The request includes information that will allow the advertisement server to select an appropriate advertisement. The advertisement server includes a control program for controlling the selection of the advertisements. The control program communicates with one or more affinity engines. Each affinity engine determines an affinity (degree of relevance or indicator of matching) given advertisements have for the information corresponding to the request. The engines use different request information such as demographic information, page sponsor information, keyword sponsor information, etc.

Claims

1. A method of providing information using a computer system, the method comprising:

receiving a request for a dynamically generated display of information, the request being associated with request information, the request information helping characterize a user;

requesting one or more advertisements for use in generating the dynamically generated display of information;

generating a subset of advertisements from a set of advertisements using selection criteria, the subset of advertisements including the one or more advertisements, the selection criteria corresponding to the request information, the generating the set of advertisements including accessing one or more programs, each program of the one or more programs for adding to and refining the subset of advertisements using the selection criteria;

providing at least a reference to the one or more advertisements from the subset of advertisements upon the earlier occurrence of, the completion of all of the one or more programs adding to and refining the subset, a determination that the one or more advertisements is to be provided prior to the completion;

providing a description of the dynamically generated display of information, the description corresponding to the reference; and

displaying the dynamically generated display of information using the description, the dynamically generated display including the one or more advertisements.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the request includes receiving an HTTP request for a browser program for an HTML page, the HTML page corresponding to the description.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the computer system includes a client computer and a first server, the client computer and the first server being coupled in communications, wherein the method includes the client computer initiating the request, and wherein the first server receiving the request includes receiving the request at the first server.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the computer system includes a second server, the second server being coupled in communications with the first server, and wherein requesting the one or more advertisements includes the first server requesting the one or more advertisements from the second server, and wherein providing the at least the reference includes the second server providing the reference to the first server.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the generating the subset of advertisements includes accessing a first program of the one or more programs, the first program initializing the subset of advertisements prior to refining the subset of advertisements.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein each advertisement in the subset of advertisements is associated with a weighting indicating an affinity of the each advertisement to the selection criteria, wherein the one or more programs provide feedback about the number of advertisements being added to the subset of advertisements by a corresponding program, and wherein refining the subset of advertisements includes adjusting weightings of advertisements in the subset of advertisements according to feedback to adjust the number of advertisements added to the subset by a program of the one or more programs.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the request information is used to identify a sponsor for the dynamically generated display of information, and wherein the one or more programs includes a program for identifying a set of sponsor advertisements of the set of advertisements, the set of sponsor advertisements corresponding to advertisements of the sponsor.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the sponsor related information includes a sponsor identifier.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the request information is used to identify a sponsor for a keyword, the keyword being associated with the dynamically generated display of information, the one or more programs includes a program for identifying a set of sponsor advertisements of the set of advertisements, the set of sponsor advertisements corresponding to advertisements of the sponsor.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the request information is used to identify a sponsor for a keyword corresponding to the dynamically generated display of information, and wherein the one or more programs includes a program for identifying a set of sponsor advertisements of the set of advertisements, the set of sponsor advertisements corresponding to advertisements of the sponsor.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving a portion of the description, and wherein a program of the one or more programs analyzes the portion of the description to determine a set of terms identifying the portion of the description, wherein each advertisement in the set of advertisements is associated with a corresponding set of advertisement terms identifying the each advertisement, and wherein the program matches the set of terms with the sets of advertisement terms to adjust the subset of advertisements.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the request information includes user interest information and wherein the one or more programs includes a program that adjusts the subset of advertisements by identifying a second subset of advertisements having some affinity to the user interest information and including the second subset of advertisements in the subset of advertisements.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the computer system includes a server and wherein providing the description includes the server sending an HTML page with references to the one or more advertisements.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the computer system includes a computer executing a display program, and wherein displaying the dynamically generated display of information includes the display program requesting the one or more advertisements and displaying a result of the request.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the computer system includes a server, wherein the reference includes a link identifier to the server, the link identifier further identifying at least a first advertisement of the one or more advertisements, and wherein the display program uses the link identifier to request the first advertisement from the server.

16. A computer program product comprising:

a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein for causing a computer system to select and provide advertisements, the computer readable program code including,

one or more computer readable select program codes that have selection criterion inputs and sets of advertisements outputs, the selection criterion inputs allow the one or more computer readable select program codes to select advertisements to include in the sets of advertisements outputs;

a computer readable control program code that has advertisement request inputs and advertisement reference outputs, the computer readable program control program code generating a final set of advertisements from the sets of advertisements outputs, the advertisement request inputs corresponding to one or more requests for advertisements and one or more corresponding selection informations, the selection informations corresponding to the selection criterion inputs, the advertisement reference outputs referencing the final set of advertisements in response to the one or more requests for advertisements; and

a computer readable access program code that accesses a store of advertisements in response to the one or more computer readable select program codes.

17. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein advertisements in the store of advertisements are associated with advertisement information, the one or more computer readable select program codes corresponding to one or more affinity engines, each affinity engine of the one or more affinity engines determining a corresponding set of advertisements by comparing the selection criterion inputs with the advertisement information and including advertisements with some affinity between the selection criterion inputs and the advertisement information.

18. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein the advertisement request inputs correspond to requests form a web server for advertisements and wherein the selection information includes user identifying information.

19. The computer program product of claim 18 wherein the user identifying information includes a username, a session identifier, an address of a requesting machine.

20. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein the store of advertisements includes a database program and wherein the computer readable access program code includes a data access module for accessing said database program.