Accepting bids to advertise to users performing a specific activity

• US 7,698,165 B1
• Filed: 02/01/2005
• Issued: 04/13/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/02/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AudienceScience, Inc.
• Original Assignee: AudienceScience, Inc.
• Inventors: Tawakol, Omar, Nayfeh, Basem
• Primary Examiner(s): JANVIER, JEAN D
• Application Number:
  US11/049,411
• Time in Patent Office: 1,897 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14.4, 705/26, 705/37, 709/203, 709/223, 709/218, 709/224, 707/16, 707/1, 707/100, 707/104.1
• US Class Current: 705/14.4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A facility for Performing on-line advertising at a subject web site relative to a selected user activity is described. The facility receives a plurality of bids. Each bid is submitted on behalf of an advertiser, and specifies an advertising rate that the advertiser will pay to display an advertising messages to users performing the selected activity with respect to the subject web site. When a request for any web page of the subject web site containing advertising space is received from a user that has previously performed the selected activity, irrespective of the identity of the requested web page, the facility both (1) identifies the received bid specifying the largest advertising rate, and (2) causes an advertising message to be displayed in the advertising space of the requested web page for the advertiser on whose behalf the identified bid was submitted.

Claims

1. A method in a computing system for defining a group of users sharing a common interest, comprising:

selecting, by a computer system, from a body of pages available at a web site, a proper subset of pages that are all visited by each individual user among a significant number of users;

analyzing by the computer system the proper subsets of pages to identify a set of terms commonly occurring in the pages; and

designating by the computer system as members of a group of users any user that visits at least a threshold number of pages available at the web site that contain the identified set of terms.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising soliciting bids to advertise to a group of users that often view pages containing the identified set of terms.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the selecting is performed using a frequent set algorithm.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the selecting is performed using a clustering algorithm.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the method is repeated for each of a plurality of different proper subsets of pages, selecting a group of users for each proper subset of pages.

6. A computing system for defining a group of users sharing a common interest, comprising:

a selection subsystem that selects from a body of pages available at a web site a proper subset of pages that are all visited by each individual user among a significant number of users;

an analysis subsystem that analyzes the proper subset of pages to identify a set of terms commonly occurring in the pages; and

a membership subsystem that designates as members of a group of users any user that visits at least a threshold number of pages available at the web site that contain the identified set of terms.

7. The computer system of claim 6 wherein the selection subsystem implements a frequent set algorithm.

8. The computer system of claim 6 wherein the selection subsystem implements a clustering algorithm.

9. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a computing system to perform a method for defining a group of users sharing a common interest, the method comprising:

selecting, from a body of pages available at a web site, proper subset of pages that are all visited by each individual user among a significant number of users;

analyzing the proper subsets of pages to identify a set of terms commonly occurring in the pages; and

designating as members of the group of users any user that visits at least a threshold number of pages available at the web site that contain the identified set of terms.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 wherein the method further comprises soliciting bids to advertise to a group of users that often view pages containing the identified set of terms.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 wherein the selecting is performed using a frequent set algorithm.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 wherein the selecting is performed using a clustering algorithm.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 9 wherein the method is repeated for each of a plurality of different proper subsets of pages, selecting a group of users for each proper subset of pages.