Social Advertisements and Other Informational Messages on a Social Networking Website, and Advertising Model for Same

• US 20110029388A1
• Filed: 08/09/2010
• Published: 02/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Adam D'Angelo, Andrew G. Bosworth, Chamath M. Palihapitiya, Justin M. Rosenstein, Mark E. Zuckerberg, Matthew R. Cohler, Robert Kang-Xing Jin, Timothy A. Kendall, Yishan Wong, Yun-Fang Juan
• Inventors: Rosenstein, Justin M., Palihapitiya, Chamath M., Kendall, Timothy A., Jin, Robert Kang-Xing, Bosworth, Andrew G., Zuckerberg, Mark E., Wong, Yishan, Juan, Yun-Fang, Cohler, Matthew R., D'Angelo, Adam
• Granted Patent: US 9,984,391 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.66
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0215 Including financial accounts
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0254 based on statistics
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0275 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1859 adapted to provide push services, e.g. data channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

A social networking website logs information about actions taken by members of the website. For a particular member of the website, the website generates socially relevant ads for the member based on the actions logged for other members on the website to whom the member is connected (i.e., the member'"'"'s online friends). The advertiser associated with the social ad may compensate the social networking website for publishing the ad on the website. When presenting a member with a social ad, the website may optimize advertising revenue by selecting an ad from the received ads that will maximize the expected value of the social ad. The expected value may be computed according to a function that includes the member'"'"'s affinity for the ad content and the bid amount. The technique is also applied for providing socially relevant information off the social networking website.

Claims

1. A method for obtaining revenue from a website, the method comprising:

generating multiple advertisements for a user of a website, each advertisement communicating an action associated with another user with whom the user has a connection on the website;

computing an affinity score between the user and at least some of the advertisements;

receiving a bid amount associated with the advertisements;

selecting one or more of the advertisements based on the advertisements'"'"' affinity scores and bid amounts; and

publishing at least one of the selected advertisements to a web page delivered to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the bid amount for one or more of the advertisements represents an amount of compensation to be received by the website if the user takes a further action with respect to the advertisement.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the further action comprises a user selection of a link on the advertisement.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the advertisements communicate an action taken on the website by another user with whom the user has a connection.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the advertisements communicate an action taken on a third-party website by another user with whom the user has a connection.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the advertisements communicate an action performed by another user with whom the user has a connection, wherein the action is communicated to the website and not directly observed by the website.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the website is a social networking website.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting the web page with the one or more selected advertisements to a device associated with the user for display thereon.

9. A system for obtaining revenue from a website, the system comprising:

a web server configured to present advertisements on web pages;

a profile store containing a profile for each of a plurality of users of the website, each profile identifying a connection to each of a plurality of other users of the website;

an advertisement request database for storing a plurality of advertisement requests, each advertisement communicating an action associated with another user with whom the user has a connection on the website, and each advertisement associated with a bid amount; and

an advertising server capable of receiving advertisement requests to advertise on the website, the advertising server configured to provide an advertisement to the web server, the advertisement obtained by;

computing an affinity score between the user and at least some of the advertisements, and

selecting one or more of the advertisements based on the advertisements'"'"' affinity scores and bid amounts.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the bid amount for one or more of the advertisements represents an amount of compensation to be received by the website if the user takes a further action with respect to the advertisement.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the further action comprises a user selection of a link on the advertisement.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein one or more of the advertisements communicate an action taken on the website by another user with whom the user has a connection.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein one or more of the advertisements communicate an action taken on a third-party website by another user with whom the user has a connection.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein one or more of the advertisements communicate an action performed by another user with whom the user has a connection, wherein the action is communicated to the website without being directly observed by the website.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the website is a social networking website.