VALUE ADD BROKER FOR FEDERATED ADVERTISING EXCHANGE

• US 20080103969A1
• Filed: 06/13/2007
• Published: 05/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Biggs, Jody D., Flake, Gary W., Meek, Christopher A., Brewer, Brett D., Burdick, Brian, Dominowska, Ewa, Chickering, David Max
• Granted Patent: US 8,533,049 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/39
• 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:

receiving by the advertising exchange valuable information or valuable services from a value add broker;

determining a value of the valuable information or valuable services to one or more transactions conducted in the advertising exchange; and

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

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

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

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

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

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

preserving privacy of the valuable information received from the value add broker by obscuring an identity of a value add provider providing the valuable information while maintaining the association from the valuable information to the value add broker that provided the valuable 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 valuable information or valuable 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 valuable information or valuable 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 for valuable information received by each value add broker.

8. The method of claim 1, further including:

tracking at least one performance metric for valuable services carried out by each value add broker.

9. The method of claim 1, further including:

determining a quality rating for each value add broker based on at least one performance metric for information received by each value add broker or for services carried out by each value add broker.

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 a request, by a third party value add provider that does not purchase or sell advertising in the advertising exchange, that specifies at least one piece of valuable information or at least one valuable service that will facilitate completion of at least one advertising transaction for the advertisement space in the advertising exchange;

processing the request to determine whether the third party value add provider has access to one or more pieces of the at least one piece of valuable information or can carry out one or more services of the at least one valuable service to the advertising exchange in connection with the at least one advertising transaction;

inputting, by the value add provider or through a value add broker that brokers on behalf of a plurality of value add providers, the one or more pieces of valuable information to the advertising exchange or carrying out the one or more valuable services by the value add provider, and

automatically receiving a benefit by the value add provider commensurate with the value of the information or services to one or more participants of the at least one advertising transaction conducted in the advertising exchange.

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 valuable services have been performed by the value add provider.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the inputting include inputting by an information broker the one or more pieces of valuable information to the advertising exchange aggregated by the information broker from a plurality of external information sources.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the inputting include inputting by a statistics broker the one or more pieces of valuable 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 valuable 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 carrying out includes generating one or more financial instruments by a financial instruments service provider pertaining to the advertisement space of the at least one advertising transaction conducted in the advertising exchange.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the carrying out includes generating one or more options/futures contracts by a financial trading service provider pertaining to the performance of the at least one advertising transaction conducted in the advertising exchange.

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 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 transaction in the advertising exchange to expose how much the one or more participants can be trusted based on past history.

20. A system to facilitate trading of advertising, comprising:

at least one publisher broker to represent at least one publisher, wherein the at least one publisher broker determines an ask for publishing inventory of the at least one publisher;

at least one advertiser broker to represent at least one advertiser, wherein the at least one advertiser broker manages one of the at least one advertiser'"'"'s bid for the publishing inventory;

an exchange to facilitate a transaction for the publishing inventory between the at least one publisher broker and the at least one advertiser broker, wherein the at least one publisher broker and the at least one advertiser broker represent disparate advertising networks; and

at least one value add broker communicatively coupled to at least one third party having valuable information or services for input to the exchange, wherein the valuable information or services facilitate the transaction for the publishing inventory.