Video ad unit with time and orientation-based playback

• US 9,927,961 B2
• Filed: 01/09/2015
• Issued: 03/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Flipboard Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Flipboard Incorporated
• Inventors: Weskamp, Marcos A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ulrich, Nicholas
• Application Number:
  US14/593,984
• Publication Number:
  US 20160202861A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,173 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1694 the I/O peripheral being a single or a set of motion sensors for pointer control or gesture input obtained by sensing movements of the portable computer
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0346 with detection of the device orientation or free movement in a 3D space, e.g. 3D mice, 6-DOF [six degrees of freedom] pointers using gyroscopes, accelerometers or tilt-sensors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/10 Indexing; Addressing; Timing or synchronising; Measuring tape travel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44226 on social networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

An interactive advertisement unit comprises an interactive position-based video portion, and may also include one or more of an introduction (“intro”) portion and an exit video portion. The advertisement unit is displayed to the user in response to an impression event, which may be an action performed by the user. Once the impression event is detected, the intro video portion, if included in the interactive advertisement unit, begins playing linearly with respect to time. When intro video portion concludes, the client device displays the interactive position-based video portion of the advertisement. During the display of this interactive position-based video portion, the client device continuously displays an image selected from a video sequence based on the orientation and/or position of the client device. Once the client device detects an exit event, the client device may play the exit video portion linearly with respect to time.

Claims

1. A computer program product for providing advertising to users of an online system, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing computer program code for:

receiving an advertisement, the advertisement including a video portion comprising a series of video frames;

identifying an impression event for displaying the received advertisement on a client device;

responsive to the impression event;

calculating a reference position of the client device based on an initial position received from a position detector of the client device, and

displaying a sequence of frames of the series of video frames and continually updating the displayed sequence of frames on the client device, the displayed sequence of frames selected by;

receiving an indication of a current position of the client device from the position detector of the client device,

selecting a sequence of frames from the series of the video frames, the sequence of frames selected based on an orientation of the current position of the client device relative to the reference position, and

displaying the selected sequence of frames on the client device as the displayed sequence of frames and

identifying an exit event for dismissing the advertisement from the client device.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the impression event comprises a user input that causes a page turn of a digital magazine.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the impression event comprises a user selection of an advertisement thumbnail.

4. The computer program product of claim 1, the computer program product further comprising computer program code for playing a first segment of video frames of the video portion responsive to the impression event and prior to continually updating the displayed sequence of frames of the series of video frames on the client device.

5. The computer program product of claim 4, wherein the first sequence of frames of the series of video frames is played linearly with respect to time.

6. The computer program product of claim 4, wherein the displayed sequence of frames of the series of video frames is selected from a second segment of video frames of the video portion, and the computer program product further contains computer program code for playing a third segment of video frames of the video portion responsive to the exit event.

7. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein the third segment of video frames of the video portion of the series of video frames is played linearly with respect to time.

8. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein the first, second, and third segments of the video frames of the video portion are consecutive segments of the advertisement.

9. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein the advertisement includes a visual representation of a first impression event within the video frames of the first segment of the video portion that transitions to the second segment of the video portion when an interaction with the advertisement is received and a visual representation of a second impression event within the video frames of the second segment of the video portion that transitions to the third segments of the video portion when another interaction with the advertisement is received.

10. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer program product further comprising computer program code for:

responsive to the orientation of the current position of the client device indicating stepping forward through the series of video frames of the received advertisement, selecting a sequence of frames from the series of the video frames of the video portion corresponding to the orientation of the current position of the client device with respect to the reference position of the client device.

11. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer program product further comprising computer program code for:

responsive to receiving the reference position of the client device, mapping a plurality of orientations of the client device to the video frames of the advertisement with respect to the reference position of the client device.

12. A computer program product for providing advertising to users of an online system, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing computer program code for:

receiving an advertisement, the advertisement including a video portion comprising a series of video frames;

identifying an impression event for displaying the received advertisement on a client device; and

responsive to the impression event;

calculating a reference position of the client device based on an initial position received from a position detector of the client device, and

continually displaying a sequence of frames of the series of video frames on the client device, the displayed sequence of frames selected based on the reference position and an orientation of a current position of the client device.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, the computer-readable storage medium further containing computer program code for playing a first segment of the series of video frames of the video portion linearly with respect to time responsive to the impression event and prior to displaying the selected sequence of frames of the series of video frames on the client device.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the displayed frames are selected from a second segment of the series of video frames of the video portion, and the computer-readable storage medium further contains computer program code for:

identifying an exit event;

responsive to the exit event, playing a third segment of the series of video frames of the video portion linearly with respect to time; and

dismissing the advertisement after the third segment of the series of video frames of the video portion of the video has been played.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the exit event comprises a user input dismissing the advertisement from the client device.

16. A method for advertising to users of an online system, the method comprising:

selecting an advertisement to be displayed on the client device; and

sending the selected advertisement to the client device,

wherein the advertisement includes;

a video portion including a series of video frames divided into first, second, and third segments; and

instructions for causing the client device to;

responsive to an impression event, play a first segment of the series of video frames linearly with respect to time,

receive a reference position of the client device from a position detector of the client device,

after the playing of the first segment of the series of video frames of the video portion, display a sequence of frames of the video frames of the video portion on the client device from the second segment of the video frames of the video portion, the displayed sequence of frames selected based on the reference position and an orientation of a current position of the client device, and

responsive to an exit event, play a third segment of the video frames of the video portion linearly with respect to time.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the impression event comprises a user input that causes a page turn of a digital magazine displayed by the client device.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the impression event comprises a user selection of an advertisement thumbnail.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the selected advertisement includes a visual representation for a first impression event within the video frames of the first segment of the video portion that transitions to the second segments of the video portion when an interaction with the advertisement is received and a visual representation for a second impression event within the video frames of the second segment of the video portion that transition to the third segments of the video portion when another interaction with the advertisement is received.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the advertisement further comprises instructions for causing the client device to:

responsive to the current position of the client device indicating stepping forward through the series of video frames of the advertisement, select a frame from the series of the video frames corresponding to the orientation of the current position of the client device with respect to the reference position of the client device.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein the advertisement further comprises instructions for causing the client device to:

responsive to receiving the reference position of the client device, map a plurality of orientations of the client device to the video frames of the advertisement with respect to the reference position of the client device.