Cell-allocation in location-selective information provision systems

• US 9,230,267 B2
• Filed: 03/18/2013
• Issued: 01/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/04/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Moasis Global Corporation
• Original Assignee: Moasis Global Corporation
• Inventors: Golden, Ryan, Mullen, Jason, Golden, Steven
• Primary Examiner(s): Ravetti, Dante
• Application Number:
  US13/845,438
• Publication Number:
  US 20130218710A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,023 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0205 Location or geographical consideration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

Systems and methods for allocating cells within a virtual grid to content providers according to various priority and selection schemes are used to target content delivery to information playback devices in a geographically and/or application selective manner. The priority schemes, geographical selectivity, and application selectivity of the system and methods of the invention allow a content provider to specifically target a desired demographic with high cost efficiency and flexibility.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising software that when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform the steps of:

dividing a geographical area into a virtual grid comprising a plurality of cells;

accepting bids for a cell within the plurality of cells from at least a first content provider and a second content provider;

determining which content provider has submitted the winning bid for the cell;

obtaining content submitted from the content provider submitting a winning bid for the cell;

and transmitting at least a portion of the obtained content to an information playback device located in the cell.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the software, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform the steps of:

selecting one of the different advertisements based on the particular application running on the information playback device; and

transmitting the selected advertisement to the information playback device;

wherein the information playback device comprises a plurality of different applications, and the content comprises a plurality of different advertisements.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the cells of the plurality of cells each have about the same dimensions.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the cells of the plurality of cells are defined by longitude and latitude.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the cells of the plurality of cells are hexagonal in shape.

6. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the cells of the plurality of cells are square in shape.

7. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the cells of the plurality of cells each define an area of 0.1 square kilometers in area.

8. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the cells of the plurality of cells each define an area of 0.5 square kilometers in area.

9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the cells of the plurality of cells are each defined by population size.

10. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the bids for the cell are for a time slot during which the portion of the obtained content is transmitted to an information playback device located in the cell.

11. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, to perform the step of:

determining which content provider has submitted the winning bid for the cell comprises executing a bidding algorithm on the processor;

wherein the software comprises the bidding algorithm and the bidding algorithm uses a quantity correlated with demographic information of a certain cell.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the quantity correlated with demographic information of a certain cell is income per capita.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the quantity correlated with demographic information of a certain cell is population density.