Value add broker for federated advertising exchange

• US 8,533,049 B2
• Filed: 06/13/2007
• Issued: 09/10/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Flake, Gary W., Brewer, Brett D., Meek, Christopher A., Chickering, David Max, Biggs, Jody D., Dominowska, Ewa, Burdick, Brian
• Primary Examiner(s): Bekerman, Michael
• Assistant Examiner(s): BROWN, LUIS A
• Application Number:
  US11/762,625
• Publication Number:
  US 20080103969A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,281 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14, 705/14.71, 705/14.16, 705/14.69, 705/14.7
• US Class Current: 705/14.71
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0242 Determining effectiveness of advertisements

Abstract

For a multi-party advertising exchange, including publishing entities and advertising entities from disparate advertising networks, which facilitates transactions for publishing inventory, a value add broker is provided to aggregate information from third parties having valuable information for input to the exchange or to perform services that are valuable to transactions in the exchange. The valuable information or services further facilitate the transactions for the publishing inventory automatically generating a benefit for the third parties providing the valuable information or services commensurate with the value added to the transactions.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating transactions for publishing inventory available in an advertising exchange including at least one publishing entity to represent at least one publisher and at least one advertising entity to represent at least one advertiser, wherein the advertising exchange federates at least two disparate advertising networks, comprising:

communicating a request for information to a third party value add broker, the information being relevant to at least one potential advertising transaction within the advertising exchange, the request including information about the at least one potential advertising transaction;

receiving, at one or more computing devices on which the advertising exchange is operating, the information from a value add broker that does not purchase or sell advertising in the advertising exchange;

determining, at the one or more computing devices, a value of the information by auctioning the information to entities participating in a potential advertising transaction;

completing the potential advertising transaction between the entities using the information; and

automatically generating a benefit for the value add broker as a function of the value of the information or the services provided by the value add broker.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

normalizing a representation of the information or the services to a common vocabulary for representing information or services across different value add brokers in the advertising exchange.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

associating identifiers that identify a type of information or service associated with the information or the services.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

preserving privacy of the information received from the value add broker by obscuring an identity of a value add provider providing the information from the entities participating in the potential advertising transaction while maintaining the association from the information to the value add broker that provided the information for said generating step.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically sharing the benefit to one or more value add providers that provided the information or the services to the value add broker as another function of the value of the information or services provided by the value add broker.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically sharing revenue to one or more value add providers that provided the information or services to the value add broker as a function of the revenue generated by the information or services provided by the value add broker.

7. The method of claim 1, further including:

tracking at least one performance metric that measures performance of information received from value add brokers.

8. The method of claim 1, further including:

tracking at least one performance metric that measures performance of services carried out by value add brokers.

9. The method of claim 1, further including:

determining a quality rating for each value add broker based on at least one performance metric that measures performance of information received from value add brokers.

10. A method for facilitating transactions for advertisement space in an advertising exchange that federates participants including publishers and advertisers from at least two disparate advertising networks, comprising:

receiving, at one or more computing devices, a request for at least one piece of information or at least one service that is relevant to at least one potential advertising transaction for the advertisement space in the advertising exchange;

processing, at the one or more computing devices, the request to determine whether a third party value add provider has access to one or more pieces of the at least one piece of information or can carry out one or more services of the at least one service to the advertising exchange in connection with the at least one potential advertising transaction, wherein the third party value add provider does not purchase or sell advertising in the advertising exchange;

inputting, by the one or more computing devices, the one or more pieces of information into the advertising exchange or carrying out the one or more services, wherein the inputting or the carrying out is performed directly by the third party value add provider or indirectly through a value add broker that brokers on behalf of a plurality of value add providers, and wherein the information originates from an information broker that aggregated the information from a plurality of external information sources; and

automatically receiving a benefit by the value add provider commensurate with the value obtained by auctioning the information or the service to entities participating in the at least one potential advertising transaction.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the receiving includes automatically receiving revenue by the value add provider as the benefit.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

notifying the advertising exchange when the one or more services have been performed by the value add provider.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the method further comprises determining a quality rating for one or more value add brokers based on at least one performance metric that measures performance of services carried out by the one or more value add brokers.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the inputting include inputting by a statistics broker the one or more pieces of statistical trends to the advertising exchange compiled by the statistics broker based on a plurality of external information sources.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the inputting include inputting by an audience data broker the one or more pieces of information about an audience for the advertisement space of the at least one advertising transaction conducted in the advertising exchange.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the method further comprises determining a quality rating for one or more value add brokers based on at least one performance metric that measures performance of information received from the one or more value add brokers.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the method further comprises, tracking at least one performance metric that measures performance of services carried out by value add brokers.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein the inputting includes inputting information that reduces the variance of outcome for expected results for one or more participants to the at least one potential transaction in the advertising exchange.

19. The method of claim 10, wherein the inputting includes inputting information about trust level for one or more participants to the at least one potential transaction in the advertising exchange to expose how much the one or more participants can be trusted based on past history.

20. A method for facilitating transactions for advertisement space in an advertising exchange that federates participants including publishers and advertisers from at least two disparate advertising networks, comprising:

receiving by a third party value add provider, at a computing device, a request for at least one service that is relevant to at least one potential advertising transaction for the advertisement space in the advertising exchange;

processing, at the computing device, the request to determine whether the third party value add provider can carry out one or more services of the at least one service to the advertising exchange in connection with the at least one potential advertising transaction, wherein the third party value add provider does not purchase or sell advertising in the advertising exchange;

carrying out, by the one or more computing devices, the one or more services by the value add provider, the one or more services pertaining to completion of the at least one potential advertising transaction in the advertising exchange; and

automatically receiving a benefit by the value add provider that is commensurate with the value obtained by auctioning the service to entities participating in the at least one potential advertising transaction.