Targeted media advertising over networks

• US 8,301,724 B2
• Filed: 11/29/2011
• Issued: 10/30/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: David Moganstein
• Original Assignee: David S. Morganstein
• Inventors: BUCHHEIT, BRIAN K., Alexander, Justin, Schweitzer, Rob, MORGANSTEIN, DAVID S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Blair, Douglas
• Assistant Examiner(s): Survillo, Oleg
• Application Number:
  US13/306,837
• Publication Number:
  US 20120136725A1
• Time in Patent Office: 336 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217, 705/14.4, 705/14.49, 705/14.51, 705/14.73
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute

Abstract

Advertising on networks can include a three-step system in one embodiment of the disclosure. The first step can include the review of search requests, followed by a response linking to a media file containing an advertisement. The second step can be a delivery process. The advertising cannot be considered spam as the user can be redirected towards information that can directly correlate to the users search. The advertising can be done with the full cooperation and volition of the media company or companies involved. The advertisers'"'"' contract with the media companies can allow for payment and the media companies can then expose their product to potential buyers. The third step can be contacting an advertising server any time that media file is played. In this third step it can be determined what the optimal advertisement for this media file is.

Claims

1. A method for distributing media files over a peer-to-peer network, the method comprising:

configuring an information handling system to act as a node in the peer-to-peer network, said peer-to-peer network being organized loosely without any centralized management authority, said information handling system being further configured to follow rules and protocols of the de-centralized peer-to-peer network, the information handling system comprising a result server and a file server;

controlling, with the file server, a database of stored media files, wherein each of the stored media files encodes a material and contains embedded executable code, said embedded executable code causing at least one advertisement to be presented to request issuing peers of the peer-to-peer network each time a requested media file is utilized;

probing, with the result server, network traffic to discover file search requests from the request issuing peers, said file search requests seeking one or more materials;

searching, with the result server, a database for names of media files satisfying a discovered file search request; and

conveying, with the result server, search results to a request issuing peer, said search results comprising names of a set of one or more media files satisfying the discovered file search request and a link associated with each file name in the set,

wherein each link, when activated by the request issuing peer, causes transmission of a request to the file server for a media file associated with the link,

wherein the file server responds to the request by sending the requested media file to the request issuing peer, comprising a copy of the sought material and the embedded executable code, and

wherein each time the received media file from the file server is utilized, the embedded executable code is triggered and presents the request issuing peer with at least one advertisement before or during playback of the material of the media file.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the received media file is a video file, a streamed set video files, or an interactive software executable, wherein the at least one advertisement is presented when the video file, the steamed set of video files, or the interactive software executable is presented on a computing device of the request issuing peer.

3. The method of claim 1,

wherein the material is a copyrighted material, and wherein the at least one advertisement is being presented with the cooperation and volition of a company holding rights to the copyrighted material.

4. The method of claim 1,

wherein the material is a copyrighted material, wherein the sending of the requested media file by the information handling system occurs with the full cooperation and volition of a company having legal rights to disseminate the copyrighted material, wherein said method provides a media distributor with a means for deriving profit from peer-to-peer network file sharing of copyrighted material, wherein the at least one advertisement, is served by a server, which locates an appropriate advertisement at a time that the received media file is utilized, wherein advertisement content is unknown until the time the received media file is utilized, and wherein the information presented comprises targeted advertising specific to the received search criteria of the discovered file search request or to a user of the received media file.

5. An information handling system, comprising:

a result server comprising at least one computer processor, an input receiving component, a search engine, and a server logic that execute upon the at least one computer processor; and

a file server controlling a database of stored media files, wherein each of the stored media files encodes a material and contains embedded executable code, said embedded executable code causing at least one advertisement to be presented to request issuing peers of a peer-to-peer network each time a requested media file is utilized,

wherein said information handling system is configured to act as a node in the peer-to-peer network, said peer-to-peer network being organized loosely without any centralized management authority, said information handling system being further configured to follow rules and protocols of the de-centralized peer-to-peer network,

said input receiving component configured to probe network traffic to discover file search requests from the request issuing peers, said file search requests seeking one or more materials;

said search engine configured to search a database for names of media files satisfying a discovered file search request; and

said server logic configured to convey search results to a request issuing peer, said search results comprising names of a set of one or more media files satisfying the discovered file search request and a link associated with each file name in the set,

wherein each link, when activated by the request issuing peer, causes transmission of a request to the file server for a media file associated with the link,

wherein the file server responds to the request by sending the requested media file to the request issuing peer, comprising a copy of the sought material and the embedded executable code, and

wherein each time the received media file from the file server is utilized, the embedded executable code is triggered and presents the request issuing peer with at least one advertisement before or during playback of the material of the media file.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the at least one advertisement that is presented before or during playback of the material of the media file is selected at a time the embedded executable code is executed, wherein the at least one advertisement is targeted to an individual identified as a user requesting the playback of the material of the media file and therefore varies from user-to-user and from playback-time to playback-time.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein each of the media files comprises a unique identifier, wherein the unique identifier is not changed in-between multiple copies of each media file and if media file name is altered, wherein each of said one or more advertisements is associated with the unique identifier, wherein the at least one advertisement provides a media distributor with a means for deriving profit from peer-to-peer network file sharing, and wherein a request for information is transmitted to the information handling system responsive to a user command to run the received media file.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein an entity associated with the at least one advertisement financially compensates a different entity that discovered a file search request and provided the received media file in response, and wherein the at least one advertisement is a targeted advertisement specifically selected as being appropriate for the received media file.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein said peer-to-peer network consists of a computer network in which members have equal rights to one another, and wherein the peer-to-peer network allows members to use each other'"'"'s hard-drives equally.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein when the user of the received media file activates a player to play the file, the request issuing peer automatically contacts an advertising server corresponding to the at least one advertisement.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the request issuing peer can bypass playing back the at least one advertisement before accessing the requested material by possessing an unlock key, wherein the unlock key was purchased by the user of the request issuing peer.

12. The system of claim 5, wherein the at least one advertisement, is served by a server, which locates an appropriate advertisement at a time that the received media file is utilized, wherein advertisement content is unknown until the time the received media file is utilized.

13. The system of claim 5, wherein the received media file is a video file or a streamed set of video files, wherein the at least one advertisement is presented when the video file or the streamed set of video files are played by a media playback device of the request issuing peer.

14. The system of claim 5, wherein the received media file is an interactive software executable, wherein the at least one advertisement is presented when the interactive software executable is interactively presented on a computing device of the request issuing peer.

15. The system of claim 5,

wherein the database of stored media files is implemented in a non-transitory storage medium, wherein the material, is a copyrighted material, and wherein the at least one advertisement is being presented with the cooperation and volition of a company holding rights to the copyrighted material.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein

the link is presented to the request issuing peer in the form of a hyperlink associated with each file name.

17. The system of claim 5, wherein the received media file includes material similar to, but not exactly matching the one or more materials the request issuing peer is seeking in the discovered file search request.

18. A computer program product comprising:

one or more computer-readable, non-transitory storage mediums;

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more computer-readable, non-transitory storage mediums to configure an information handling system to act as a node in a peer-to-peer network, said peer-to-peer network being organized loosely without any centralized management authority, to configure said information handling system to follow rules and protocols of the de-centralized peer-to-peer network, the information handling system comprising a result server and a file server;

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more computer-readable, non-transitory storage mediums to control, with the file server, a database of stored media files, wherein each of the stored media files encodes a material and contains embedded executable code, said embedded executable code causing at least one advertisement to be presented to request issuing peers of the peer-to-peer network each time a requested media file is utilized;

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more computer-readable, non-transitory storage mediums to probe, with the result server, network traffic to discover file search requests from the request issuing peers, said file search requests seeking one or more materials;

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more computer-readable, non-transitory storage mediums to search, with the result server, a database for names of media files satisfying a discovered file search request; and

program instructions, stored on at least one of the one or more computer-readable, non-transitory storage mediums to convey, with the result server, search results to a request issuing peer, said search results comprising names of a set of one or more media files satisfying the discovered file search request and a link associated with each file name in the set,

wherein each link, when activated by the request issuing peer, causes transmission of a request to the file server for a media file associated with the link,

wherein the file server responds to the request by sending the requested media file to the request issuing peer, comprising a copy of the sought material and the embedded executable code, and

wherein each time the received media file from the file server is utilized, the embedded executable code is triggered and presents the request issuing peer with at least one advertisement before or during playback of the material of the media file.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the received media file is a video file, a streamed set video files, or an interactive software executable, wherein the at least one advertisement is presented when the video file, the steamed set of video files, or the interactive software executable is presented on a computing device of the request issuing peer.

20. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the material is a copyrighted material, and wherein the at least one advertisement is being presented with the cooperation and volition of a company holding rights to the copyrighted material.

21. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the material is a copyrighted material, wherein the sending of the requested media file by the information handling system occurs with the full cooperation and volition of a company having legal rights to disseminate the copyrighted material, wherein said method provides a media distributor with a means for deriving profit from peer-to-peer network file sharing of copyrighted material, wherein the at least one advertisement is served by a server, which locates an appropriate advertisement at a time that the received media file is utilized, wherein advertisement content is unknown until the time the received media file is utilized, and wherein the information presented comprises targeted advertising specific to the received search criteria of the discovered file search request or to a user of the received media file.