System and method for creation and management of advertising inventory using metadata

• US 9,294,727 B2
• Filed: 10/31/2007
• Issued: 03/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Veritone Media
• Original Assignee: Veritone Media
• Inventors: Steelberg, Ryan, Steelberg, Chad
• Primary Examiner(s): Smith, Chenea
• Application Number:
  US11/981,839
• Publication Number:
  US 20090113468A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,065 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0276 Advertisement creation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2387 Stream processing in response to a playback request from an end-user, e.g. for trick-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/266 Channel or content management, e.g. generation and management of keys and entitlement messages in a conditional access system, merging a VOD unicast channel into a multicast channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47217 for controlling playback functions for recorded or on-demand content, e.g. using progress bars, mode or play-point indicators or bookmarks specific graphical features in visual interfaces H04N21/4312
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6106 specially adapted to the downstream path of the transmission network
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/16 Analogue secrecy systems; Analogue subscription systems

Abstract

The invention is directed to a system and method for the creation and management of advertising inventory utilizing associated metadata. The system generally includes a media streaming system that is used with a video player in connection with the playback of at least one audio/video work. The media streaming system includes a media distribution system that supplies metadata associated with the audio/video work to the video player. The metadata has a hierarchical taxonomy that defines a plurality of attributes associated with one or more objects present in the audio/video work. The system also includes an ad inventory engine that determines available ad inventory based on the metadata and matches the available inventory with advertisement data based on the hierarchical taxonomy.

Claims

1. A media streaming system for use with a video player in connection with the playback of an audio/video work, the system comprising:

a media distribution system that provides metadata associated with the audio/video work to the video player, wherein the metadata identifies objects appearing in the audio/video work in accordance with a hierarchical taxonomy within the audio/video work wherein the provided metadata is determined, at least in part, by a crawler wherein the crawler is configured to review the audio/video work to determine the nomenclature for each object in the audio/video work to be used as the metadata, wherein the metadata identified by the crawler is limited to certain levels of the hierarchical taxonomy as specified by a prioritization filter, and

an ad inventory engine that determines available ad placement opportunities within the work as ad inventory, based on the metadata, and associates at least one ad placement opportunity with an advertisement based on a matching of a subject of the advertisement with metadata associated with an object appearing in the audio/video work that identifies the object in accordance with the hierarchical taxonomy, wherein the associated advertisement may be displayed concurrently during playback within the content of the audio/video work, wherein the audio/video work is at least one of a sporting event, television program, movie, and a commercial.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the media distribution system and the ad inventory engine is at least partially remote from the video player.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the metadata includes at least one temporal attribute associated with the object present in the audio/visual work.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the metadata includes at least one spatial attribute associated with the object present in the audio/visual work.

5. The system of claim 1 comprising a communication channel coupled between the media distribution system and the video player, wherein the communication channel is selected from the group consisting of satellite communication, radio communication, wired communication, infrared communication, coaxial cable communication, WIFI communication, WiMAX communication, LAN communication, WAN communication, telephonic communication, DSL communication, and Ethernet communication.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical taxonomy comprises at least three categories of breadth and at least three levels of depth with which to identify objects appearing in the audio/visual work.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the metadata is automatically associated with objects appearing in the audio/visual work.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the automatic association occurs, at least in part, remotely from the video player.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the automatic association occurs, at least in part, locally to the video player.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the automatic association occurs, at least in part, via object recognition software.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the ad appears in one of a pop-up window, an overlay, and a banner.

11. A method of streaming an audio/video work to a video player, the method comprising:

providing the audio/video work and metadata associated with the audio/video work to the video player, wherein the metadata identifies objects appearing in the audio/video work in accordance with a hierarchical taxonomy within the audio/video work wherein the provided metadata is determined, at least in part, by a crawler wherein the crawler reviews the audio/video work to determine the nomenclature for each object in the audio/video work to be used as the metadata, wherein the metadata identified by the crawler is limited to certain levels of the hierarchical taxonomy as specified by a prioritization filter; and

determining available ad placement opportunities within the work as ad inventory based on the metadata, and associating at least one ad placement opportunity with an advertisement based on a matching of a subject of the advertisement with metadata associated with an object appearing in the audio/video work that identifies the object in accordance with the hierarchical taxonomy, wherein the associated advertisement is displayed simultaneously during playback within the content of the audio/video work, wherein the audio/video work is at least one of a sporting event, television program, movie, and a commercial.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein at least one of the media distribution system and the ad inventory engine is at least partially remote from the video player.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the metadata includes at least one temporal attribute associated with the object present in the audio/video work.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the metadata includes at least one spatial attribute associated with the object present in the audio/video work.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the hierarchical taxonomy comprises at least three categories of breadth and at least three levels of depth with which to identify objects appearing in the audio/visual work.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising automatically identifying at least a portion of the objects appearing in the audio/visual work and associating identifying metadata with each respective identified object.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the automatic association occurs, at least in part, remotely from the video player.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the automatic association occurs, at least in part, locally to the video player.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the automatic association occurs, at least in part, via object recognition software.