Methods for serving interactive content to a user

• US 10,789,983 B2
• Filed: 03/22/2017
• Issued: 09/29/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Yieldmo, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Yieldmo, Inc.
• Inventors: Doherty, Connor Francis, Goligorsky, David Michael, Sprockett, Shawn, Wu, Eric (Ge), Bao, Yiming, Silvernight, Firecrow
• Primary Examiner(s): Sax, Steven P
• Application Number:
  US15/466,603
• Publication Number:
  US 20170194030A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,287 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04812 Interaction techniques based on cursor appearance or behaviour, e.g. being affected by the presence of displayed objects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/005 Reproducing at a different information rate from the information rate of recording for television signals H04N5/783
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/031 Electronic editing of digitised analogue information signals, e.g. audio or video signals
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/036 Insert-editing
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/102 Programmed access in sequence to addressed parts of tracks of operating record carriers access by moving the head G11B3/08, G11B5/54, G11B7/085, G11B21/022; by moving the record carrier G11B15/005, G11B17/005, by driving of both record carrier and head G11B15/1816
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/11 by using information not detectable on the record carrier
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/3081 used signal is a video-frame or a video-field (P.I.P)
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/431 Generation of visual interfaces for content selection or interaction; Content or additional data rendering
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4333 Processing operations in response to a pause request
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44204 Monitoring of content usage, e.g. the number of times a movie has been viewed, copied or the amount which has been watched monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; protecting generic digital content where the protection is independent of the precise nature of the content G06F21/10; arrangements for monitoring the use made of the broadcast services in broadcast systems H04H60/31
• 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 21/482 End-user interface for program selection broadcast systems using EPGs H04H60/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02

Abstract

One variation of a method for serving interactive content to a user includes, at a visual element inserted into a document accessed by a computing device: loading a first frame from a digital video; in response to a scroll-down event that moves the visual element upward from a bottom of a window rendered on the computing device toward a top of the window, seeking from the first frame through a subset of frames in the digital video in a first direction at a rate corresponding to a scroll rate of the scroll-down event, the subset of frames spanning a duration of the digital video corresponding to a length of the scroll-down event; and, in response to termination of the scroll-down event with the visual element remaining in view within the window, playing the digital video forward from a last frame in the subset of frames in the digital video.

Claims

1. A method for serving interactive content to a user, the method comprising:

at an image player displayed within a window rendered on a display of a mobile computing device, the image player defining a first height less than a second height of the window;

loading frames of a digital video into the image player;

during a first scroll event, detecting relocation of the image player from an initial position outside of the window to a first position within the window;

in response to termination of the first scroll event, replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from a first frame in the digital video to a second frame in the digital video at a preset video frame rate, the second frame succeeding the first frame in the digital video;

during a scroll-down event;

detecting relocation of the image player from the first position to a second position above the first position within the window at a first scroll rate; and

replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from the second frame to a third frame at a first frame rate proportional to the first scroll rate, the third frame succeeding the second frame in the digital video; and

in response to termination of the scroll-down event, replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from the third frame to a fourth frame at the preset video frame rate, the fourth frame succeeding the third frame in the digital video; and

during a scroll-up event;

detecting relocation of the image player from the second position to a third position below the second position at a second scroll rate; and

replaying the digital video backward, within the image player, from the fourth frame to a fifth frame at a second frame rate proportional to the second scroll rate, the fifth frame between the first frame and the fourth frame in the digital video.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein replaying the digital video forward from the first frame in the digital video to the second frame comprises:

recording a first load time from transmission of a first query for the first frame to display of the first frame in the image player;

selecting an intermediate frame, from frames in the digital video, offset in time from the first frame in the digital video, according to the preset video frame rate, by a first duration nearest and greater than the first load time;

rendering the intermediate frame in replacement of the first frame in the image player;

recording an intermediate load time from transmission of an intermediate query for the intermediate frame to display of the intermediate frame in the image player; and

selecting the second frame, from frames in the digital video, offset in time from the intermediate frame in the digital video, according to the preset video frame rate, by a second duration nearest and greater than the second load time.

3. The method of claim 1:

wherein replaying the digital video forward from the second frame to the third frame at the first frame rate comprises replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from the second frame to the third frame at the first frame rate greater than the preset video frame rate and proportional to the first scroll rate; and

wherein replaying the digital video backward from the fourth frame to the fifth frame at the second frame rate comprises replaying the digital video backward, within the image player, from the fourth frame to the fifth frame at the second frame rate greater than the preset video frame rate and proportional to the second scroll rate.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

during a second scroll event, detecting relocation of more than a threshold proportion of the image player outside a bottom of the window;

in response to termination of the second scroll event, pausing replay of the digital video at a sixth frame in the digital video preceding the first frame; and

during the first scroll event, replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from the sixth frame to the first frame at a third frame rate corresponding to a third scroll rate of the first scroll event.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, at the image player:

generating an interaction record representing a number of scroll-up events and durations of scroll-up events occurring at the mobile computing device;

recording in the interaction record a click-through event;

classifying an engagement level in the digital video based on the interaction record; and

serving the engagement level to a remote interaction database.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to conclusion of replay of the digital video in the image player, displaying an end frame of the digital video in the image player;

during a second scroll-up event succeeding display of the end frame in the image player, replaying the digital video backward, within the image player, from the end frame to a seventh frame in the digital video between the first frame and the end frame; and

in response to termination of the second scroll-up event with the image player remaining within the window, replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from the seventh frame.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein loading frames of the digital video into the image player comprises loading frames of the digital video into the image player defining:

the first height less than the second height of the window, the first height spanning a first portion of the second height; and

a first width less than a second width of the window, the first width spanning a second portion of the second width, the second portion greater than the first portion.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising, during the first scroll event, rendering the first frame in the digital video within the image player.

7. A method for serving interactive advertising content to a user, the method comprising:

at an image player displayed within a window rendered on a display of a mobile computing device, the image player defining a first height less than a second height of the window;

loading a first frame from a digital video;

during a scroll-down event;

detecting relocation of the image player from a first position to a second position above the first position within the window at a first scroll rate;

replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from the first frame through a first subset of frames in the digital video at a first frame rate proportional to the first scroll rate, the first subset of frames spanning a first duration of the digital video corresponding to a length of the scroll-down event; and

in response to termination of the scroll-down event, replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from a last frame in the first subset of frames in the digital video loaded into the image player at a preset frame rate; and

during a scroll-up event;

detecting relocation of the image player from a third position to a fourth position below the third position within the window at a second scroll rate; and

replaying the digital video backward, within the image player, from a last frame loaded into the image player through a second subset of frames in the digital video at a second frame rate corresponding to the second scroll rate, the second subset of frames spanning a second duration of the digital video corresponding to a length of the scroll-up event.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

in response to termination of the scroll-up event, replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from a last frame in the second subset of frames in the digital video loaded into the image player at the preset frame rate.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising, in response to selection of the image player within the window, opening a video player comprising video replay controls at the mobile computing device and replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from the first frame.

10. The method of claim 7:

wherein loading the first frame from the digital video comprises loading the first frame from the digital video into the image player contained within a web page in response to navigation to the web page in a web browser executing on the mobile computing device; and

further comprising;

generating an interaction record comprising a number of scroll-down events and scroll-up events occurring at the mobile computing device and maintaining the image player within the window;

appending the interaction record with a total duration of the digital video represented by frames inserted into the image player before navigation to an alternate webpage; and

serving the interaction record to a remote interaction database.

11. The method of claim 7:

wherein loading the first frame of the digital video comprises inserting the first frame of the digital video into the image player in response to entry of a top edge of the image player into a bottom of the window during the scroll-down event; and

wherein replaying the digital video forward from the first frame through the first subset of frames comprises inserting a second frame in the digital video into the image player in replacement of the first frame in response to detecting relocation of the image player fully within the window during the scroll-down event.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein replaying the digital video forward from the last frame in the first subset of frames comprises:

recording a first load time for a display of the mobile computing device to render the image player containing a first frame in a second subset of frames succeeding the first subset of frames in the digital video;

selecting a second frame in the second subset of frames assigned a second timestamp chronologically offset from a first timestamp of the first image in the second subset of frames by a duration nearest the first load time;

loading the second frame in the second subset of frames into the image player;

recording a second load time for the display of the mobile computing device to render the image player containing the second frame in the second subset of frames;

selecting a third frame in the second subset of frames assigned a third timestamp chronologically offset from the second timestamp of the second image in the second subset of frames by a duration nearest the third load time; and

loading the third frame in the second subset of frames into the image player.

13. The method of claim 7, further comprising, in response to replaying a final frame of the digital video, rendering a static end frame in the image player.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

in response to the scroll-up event succeeding rendering the static end frame in the image player, replaying the digital video backward, within the image player, from the last final frame; and

in response to termination of the scroll-up event with the image player remaining in view within the window, replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from a last frame in the second subset of frames in the digital video loaded into the image player.

17. A method for serving interactive advertising content to a user, the method comprising:

at an image player loaded into a window rendered on a display of a mobile computing device, the image player defining a first height less than a second height of the window;

loading frames of a digital video of a first duration;

during a first scroll event, detecting relocation of the image player from an initial position to a first position within the window;

in response to termination of the first scroll event, replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from a first frame in the digital video at a preset video frame rate;

during a scroll-down event;

detecting relocation of the image player from the first position to a second position above the first position within the window at a first scroll rate; and

replaying a first segment of the digital video forward, within the image player, at a first rate proportional to the first scroll rate;

during a scroll-up event;

detecting relocation of the image player from the second position to a third position below the second position within the window at a second scroll rate; and

replaying a second segment of the digital video backward, within the image player, at a second rate proportional to the second scroll rate, the second segment of the digital video shorter than the first duration of the digital video; and

in response to termination of the scroll-up event, replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from the second segment of the digital video at the preset video frame rate.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising, at the image player:

in response to termination of the scroll-down event, replaying the digital video forward, within the image player, from a third segment of the digital video at the preset video frame rate, the third segment of the digital video succeeding the first segment of the digital video.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein detecting relocation of the image player from the initial position to the first position within the window comprises detecting relocation of the image player from the initial position outside of the window to the first position within the window.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising, at the image player, during the first scroll event, rendering the first frame in the digital video.