Abstract:
Systems and methods for producing, valuing, and trading derivatives of advertisement inventory are described. The derivative instruments allow buyers and sellers of advertisement inventory to transact a right or obligation to purchase and receive advertisement inventory at a specified price as well as reselling and trading this right or obligation with other parties. In one embodiment, a derivative instrument allows the buyer to purchase the right, but not the obligation, to receive advertisement inventory on a later date at a pre-determined price. In another embodiment, a buyer of advertising inventory buys this right at a price as calculated by using the Merton options formula, which can estimate relevant parameters such as price history, price volatility, seasonality, and correlation with prices of other advertising inventory.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    The present disclosure is related to advertising. More specifically, the disclosure relates to developing derivative advertisement instruments and associated methods to price and trade said derivative instruments. 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    The advent of search advertising—displaying ads in response to search strings, or keywords, entered by a user in a search engine (e.g., Google, Yahoo)—created marketplaces where advertising keywords are bought and sold. Buyers (e.g., advertisers) bid on how much they are willing to pay for a given keyword, while sellers (e.g., Google) employ complex algorithms that use bid prices, among other considerations, to deliver ads alongside search results. 
         [0003]    The use of derivatives could be traced to ancient times, when farmers who want to protect themselves against price fluctuations before harvest, would negotiate contracts with buyers upfront to deliver the harvest at a pre-determined price. In general, derivatives can be used as a means to transfer risk from those who want to eliminate risk to those who want to bear risk, thereby making markets more efficient. More recently, the application of derivatives in finance has transformed financial markets. Former U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan made the following comments regarding derivatives on Mar. 19, 1999, “By far the most significant event in finance during the past decade has been the extraordinary development and expansion of financial derivatives . . . these new financial instruments are an increasingly important vehicle for unbundling risks. These instruments enhance the ability to differentiate risk and allocate it to those investors most able and willing to take it. This unbundling improves the ability of the market to engender a set of product and asset prices far more calibrated to the value preferences of consumers than was possible before derivative markets were developed. The product and asset price signals enable entrepreneurs to finely allocate real capital facilities to produce those goods and services most valued by consumers, a process that has undoubtedly improved national productivity growth and standards of living.” Broadly speaking, some of the most basic types derivatives can be categorized as futures, forwards, or options. More specifically, futures are standardized contracts that allow the holder of the contract to buy or sell the underlying at a pre-determined price some time in the future. Forwards are like futures contracts, except they can be customized in terms of price, contract size, expiration date, as well as other contract terms. Options give the holder the right, but not obligation, to buy or sell the underlying at a pre-determined price some time in the future. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0004]    An auction-based system may be profitable for advertisement sellers because buyers are almost always paying near their maximum willingness to pay as the going, or spot, price is determined by supply and demand at each moment in time. However, other factors such as seasonality can also influence the going price of keywords. For example, the going price for keyword “flowers” is much higher during the week leading up to Mother&#39;s Day. Knowing this effect, a florist who wishes to run Mother&#39;s Day advertisements based on the keyword “flowers” might want to lock-in “flowers” at a pre-determined price upfront, rather than paying the going price during the week before Mother&#39;s Day. Of course, the actual going price could be higher (or lower) than the pre-determined price. The physical construct for such a possibility is derivatives based on advertisement inventory. In particular, numerial computations involving historical price patterns and relationships with associated factors can be used to estimate the pre-determined price as well as how much the lock-in might be worth. 
         [0005]    In one aspect, a method to produce, value, and trade derivatives of advertisement inventory is shown and described. The derivative instruments allow buyers and sellers of advertisement inventory to transact a right or obligation to purchase and receive advertisement inventory at a specified price as well as reselling and trading this right or obligation with other parties. 
         [0006]    In one embodiment, a derivative instrument allows the buyer to purchase the right, but not the obligation, to receive advertisement inventory on a later date at a pre-determined price. In another embodiment, a buyer of advertising inventory buys this right at a price as calculated by using formulas such as Merton, Black-Scholes, binomial, Monte Carlo, or Black, to estimate relevant parameters such as price history, price volatility, seasonality, and correlation with prices of other advertising inventory. Later, if the going price is higher than the pre-determined price, the buyer pays the pre-determined price for delivery of the advertisement inventory. Conversely, if the going price is lower than the pre-determined price, the buyer can let the right to purchase expire, and buy the advertisement inventory at the going price. 
         [0007]    In yet another embodiment, a derivative instrument allows the buyer to purchase advertisement inventory to be received on a later date at a pre-determined price. In one embodiment of this invention, buyer of advertising inventory pays the seller a price as calculated by the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck formula, which can estimate effects of parameters such as price history, price volatility, mean-reversion rate, seasonality, and correlation with prices of other advertising inventory. In other words, certain embodiments can be used as a way to calculate the discount for buying advertising up front. 
         [0008]    In further aspects, the derivative instruments can also to resold or traded with other parties such as speculators. In one embodiment, obligations to receive advertising inventory on a specified date are standardized with respect to attributes like quality, volume, delivery time, and target geography, and resold or traded in a marketplace like the Chicago Board of Trade or Google. Specifically, speculators who think the futures price of said advertising inventory will increase over time can buy futures now and sell them later at a profit. Similarly, speculators who think the futures prices of said advertising inventory will decrease over time can sell futures now and buy them later for a profit. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0009]    The following figures depict certain illustrative embodiments of the invention in which like reference numerals refer to like elements. These depicted embodiments are to be understood as illustrative of the invention and not as limiting in any way. 
           [0010]      FIG. 1  depicts an embodiment of a futures transaction based on price. 
           [0011]      FIG. 2  depicts an embodiment of a futures transaction based on quantity. 
           [0012]      FIG. 3  depicts an embodiment of an options transaction. 
           [0013]      FIG. 4  depicts an embodiment of a futures transaction based on inventory 
           [0014]      FIG. 5  depicts an embodiment of a derivatives marketplace/exchange. 
           [0015]      FIG. 6  depicts an embodiment of the spot price history for keywords “flowers” and “mothers day”. 
           [0016]      FIG. 7  depicts an embodiment of estimated and actual spot prices for the keyword “flowers”. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0017]    Referring now to  FIG. 1  there is shown a Publisher  100  (e.g. Google), an Advertiser A  101 , a search results page  102  having a search field  103  containing keyword x, search button  104 , and advertisements Advertiser A ad  105  and Advertiser B ad  106 . Additionally, in  FIG. 1  there is shown a timeline of events  107 . In more detail, still referring to  FIG. 1 , Advertiser A  101  pays Publisher  100  price f for keyword x to have Advertiser A ad  105  delivered on search results page  102  at position z on date t+n  107 . On day t+n, Publisher  100  displays Advertiser A ad  105  at position z on search results page  102 . Publisher  100  may provide an advertising platform where keywords and advertisements can be bought and sold. Additionally, Publisher  100  may also provide a search engine platform where keyword searches will result in the display of relevant advertisements. Finally, the advertising platform may function as a transparent marketplace and not artificially set prices. In some embodiments, the applications of derivatives to advertisements may be facilitated or implemented via computing devices. For example, a derivatives market may be operated over the Internet, such that participants in the market can buy or sell the derivatives online. Or for example, computing devices may be used to calculate prices or otherwise value derivatives. Or for example, computing devices may be used to display aspect of a derivatives market including, without limitation, prices, volume, volatility, and availability.  FIGS. 1B and 1C  depict block diagrams of a computing device  160  useful for practicing an embodiment of the client  102  or a server  106 . As shown in  FIGS. 1B and 1C , each computing device  160  includes a central processing unit  121 , and a main memory unit  122 . As shown in  FIG. 1B , a computing device  160  may include a visual display device  124 , a keyboard  126  and/or a pointing device  127 , such as a mouse. As shown in  FIG. 1C , each computing device  160  may also include additional optional elements, such as one or more input/output devices  130   a - 130   b  (generally referred to using reference numeral  130 ), and a cache memory  140  in communication with the central processing unit  121 . 
         [0018]    The central processing unit  121  is any logic circuitry that responds to and processes instructions fetched from the main memory unit  122 . In many embodiments, the central processing unit is provided by a microprocessor unit, such as: those manufactured by Intel Corporation of Mountain View, Calif.; those manufactured by Motorola Corporation of Schaumburg, Ill.; those manufactured by Transmeta Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif.; the RS/6000 processor, those manufactured by International Business Machines of White Plains, N.Y.; or those manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices of Sunnyvale, Calif. The computing device  160  may be based on any of these processors, or any other processor capable of operating as described herein. 
         [0019]    Main memory unit  122  may be one or more memory chips capable of storing data and allowing any storage location to be directly accessed by the microprocessor  121 , such as Static random access memory (SRAM), Burst SRAM or SynchBurst SRAM (BSRAM), Dynamic random access memory (DRAM), Fast Page Mode DRAM (FPM DRAM), Enhanced DRAM (EDRAM), Extended Data Output RAM (EDO RAM), Extended Data Output DRAM (EDO DRAM), Burst Extended Data Output DRAM (BEDO DRAM), Enhanced DRAM (EDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), JEDEC SRAM, PC100 SDRAM, Double Data Rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM), Enhanced SDRAM (ESDRAM), SyncLink DRAM (SLDRAM), Direct Rambus DRAM (DRDRAM), or Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM). The main memory  122  may be based on any of the above described memory chips, or any other available memory chips capable of operating as described herein. In the embodiment shown in  FIG. 1B , the processor  121  communicates with main memory  122  via a system bus  150  (described in more detail below).  FIG. 1C  depicts an embodiment of a computing device  160  in which the processor communicates directly with main memory  122  via a memory port  123 . For example, in  FIG. 1C  the main memory  122  may be DRDRAM. 
         [0020]      FIG. 1C  depicts an embodiment in which the main processor  121  communicates directly with cache memory  140  via a secondary bus, sometimes referred to as a backside bus. In other embodiments, the main processor  121  communicates with cache memory  140  using the system bus  150 . Cache memory  140  typically has a faster response time than main memory  122  and is typically provided by SRAM, BSRAM, or EDRAM. In the embodiment shown in  FIG. 1C , the processor  121  communicates with various I/O devices  130  via a local system bus  150 . Various buses may be used to connect the central processing unit  121  to any of the I/O devices  130 , including a VESA VL bus, an ISA bus, an EISA bus, a MicroChannel Architecture (MCA) bus, a PCI bus, a PCI-X bus, a PCI-Express bus, or a NuBus. For embodiments in which the I/O device is a video display  124 , the processor  121  may use an Advanced Graphics Port (AGP) to communicate with the display  124 .  FIG. 1C  depicts an embodiment of a computer  100  in which the main processor  121  communicates directly with I/O device  130   b  via HyperTransport, Rapid I/O, or InfiniBand.  FIG. 1C  also depicts an embodiment in which local busses and direct communication are mixed: the processor  121  communicates with I/O device  130   a  using a local interconnect bus while communicating with I/O device  130   b  directly. 
         [0021]    The computing device  160  may support any suitable installation device  116 , such as a floppy disk drive for receiving floppy disks such as 3.5-inch, 5.25-inch disks or ZIP disks, a CD-ROM drive, a CD-R/RW drive, a DVD-ROM drive, tape drives of various formats, USB device, hard-drive or any other device suitable for installing software and programs or portions thereof. The computing device  160  may further comprise a storage device, such as one or more hard disk drives or redundant arrays of independent disks, Flash memory, or EEPROMs, for storing an operating system and other related software, and for storing application software programs. Optionally, any of the installation devices  116  could also be used as the storage device. Additionally, the operating system and the software can be run from a bootable medium, for example, a bootable CD, such as KNOPPIX®, a bootable CD for GNU/Linux that is available as a GNU/Linux distribution from knoppix.net. 
         [0022]    Furthermore, the computing device  160  may include a network interface  118  to interface to a Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN) or the Internet through a variety of connections including, but not limited to, standard telephone lines, LAN or WAN links (e.g., 802.11, T1, T3, 56 kb, X.25, SNA, DECNET), broadband connections (e.g., ISDN, Frame Relay, ATM, Gigabit Ethernet, Ethernet-over-SONET, ADSL, SDSL), wireless connections, or some combination of any or all of the above. Connections can be established using a variety of communication protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, IPX, SPX, NetBIOS, Ethernet, ARCNET, SONET, SDH, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), RS232, IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, CDMA, GSM, WiMax and direct asynchronous connections). In one embodiment, the computing device  160  communicates with other computing devices  160 ′ via any type and/or form of gateway or tunneling protocol such as Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS), or the Citrix Gateway Protocol manufactured by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The network interface  118  may comprise a built-in network adapter, network interface card, PCMCIA network card, card bus network adapter, wireless network adapter, USB network adapter, modem or any other device suitable for interfacing the computing device  160  to any type of network capable of communication and performing the operations described herein. 
         [0023]    A wide variety of I/O devices  130   a - 130   b  may be present in the computing device  160 . Input devices include keyboards, mice, trackpads, trackballs, microphones, and drawing tablets. Output devices include video displays, speakers, inkjet printers, laser printers, and dye-sublimation printers. The I/O devices may be controlled by an I/O controller  123  as shown in  FIG. 1B . The I/O controller may control one or more I/O devices such as a keyboard  126  and a pointing device  127 , e.g., a mouse or optical pen. Furthermore, an I/O device may also provide storage and/or an installation medium  116  for the computing device  160 . In still other embodiments, the computing device  160  may provide USB connections to receive handheld USB storage devices such as the USB Flash Drive line of devices manufactured by Twintech Industry, Inc. of Los Alamitos, Calif. 
         [0024]    In some embodiments, the computing device  160  may comprise or be connected to multiple display devices  124   a - 124   n , which each may be of the same or different type and/or form. As such, any of the I/O devices  130   a - 130   n  and/or the I/O controller  123  may comprise any type and/or form of suitable hardware, software, or combination of hardware and software to support, enable or provide for the connection and use of multiple display devices  124   a - 124   n  by the computing device  160 . For example, the computing device  160  may include any type and/or form of video adapter, video card, driver, and/or library to interface, communicate, connect or otherwise use the display devices  124   a - 124   n . In one embodiment, a video adapter may comprise multiple connectors to interface to multiple display devices  124   a - 124   n . In other embodiments, the computing device  160  may include multiple video adapters, with each video adapter connected to one or more of the display devices  124   a - 124   n . In some embodiments, any portion of the operating system of the computing device  160  may be configured for using multiple displays  124   a - 124   n . In other embodiments, one or more of the display devices  124   a - 124   n  may be provided by one or more other computing devices, such as computing devices  100   a  and  100   b  connected to the computing device  160 , for example, via a network. These embodiments may include any type of software designed and constructed to use another computer&#39;s display device as a second display device  124   a  for the computing device  160 . One ordinarily skilled in the art will recognize and appreciate the various ways and embodiments that a computing device  160  may be configured to have multiple display devices  124   a - 124   n.    
         [0025]    In further embodiments, an I/O device  130  may be a bridge between the system bus  150  and an external communication bus, such as a USB bus, an Apple Desktop Bus, an RS-232 serial connection, a SCSI bus, a FireWire bus, a FireWire 800 bus, an Ethernet bus, an AppleTalk bus, a Gigabit Ethernet bus, an Asynchronous Transfer Mode bus, a HIPPI bus, a Super HIPPI bus, a SerialPlus bus, a SCI/LAMP bus, a FibreChannel bus, or a Serial Attached small computer system interface bus. 
         [0026]    A computing device  160  of the sort depicted in  FIGS. 1B and 1C  typically operates under the control of operating systems, which control scheduling of tasks and access to system resources. The computing device  160  can be running any operating system such as any of the versions of the MICROSOFT WINDOWS operating systems, the different releases of the Unix and Linux operating systems, any version of the MAC OS for Macintosh computers, any embedded operating system, any real-time operating system, any open source operating system, any proprietary operating system, any operating systems for mobile computing devices, or any other operating system capable of running on the computing device and performing the operations described herein. Typical operating systems include: WINDOWS 3.x, WINDOWS 95, WINDOWS 98, WINDOWS 2000, WINDOWS NT 3.51, WINDOWS NT 4.0, WINDOWS CE, WINDOWS XP, and WINDOWS VISTA, all of which are manufactured by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.; MACOS, manufactured by Apple Computer of Cupertino, Calif.; OS/2, manufactured by International Business Machines of Armonk, N.Y.; and Linux, an open source operating system distributed by, among others, Red Hat, Inc., or any type and/or form of a Unix operating system, among others. 
         [0027]    The computer system  160  can be any workstation, desktop computer, laptop or notebook computer, server, handheld computer, mobile telephone or other portable telecommunication device, media playing device, a gaming system, mobile computing device, or any other type and/or form of computing, telecommunications or media device that is capable of communication and that has sufficient processor power and memory capacity to perform the operations described herein. For example, the computer system  160  may comprise a device of the IPOD family of devices manufactured by Apple Computer of Cupertino, Calif., a PLAYSTATION 2, PLAYSTATION 3, or PERSONAL PLAYSTATION PORTABLE (PSP) device manufactured by the Sony Corporation of Tokyo, Japan, a NINTENDO DS, NINTENDO GAMEBOY, NINTENDO GAMEBOY ADVANCED or NINTENDO REVOLUTION device manufactured by Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, or an XBOX or XBOX 360 device manufactured by the Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. 
         [0028]    Referring now to  FIG. 2 , there is shown a Publisher  200 , an Advertiser A  201 , a network of online properties  202 , and a timeline  203 . In more detail, still referring to  FIG. 2 , Advertiser A  201  pays Publisher  200  price f for keyword x at quantity q on date t+n  203 . On day t+n, Publisher  200  delivers ads by Advertiser  201  in quantity q on Publisher&#39;s network  202 . 
         [0029]    Referring now to  FIG. 3 , there is shown a Publisher  300 , an Advertiser A  301 , a network of online properties  302 , a network of online properties  303 , and a timeline  304 . In more detail, still referring to  FIG. 3 , Advertiser  301  pays Publisher  300  price o for the right to buy keyword x at price p and quantity q on date t+n  304 . On day t+n, Advertiser  301  could either exercise its right, and buys keyword x at price p and quantity q. Subsequently, Publisher  300  delivers ads in quantity q on Publisher  300 &#39;s network  302 . Alternatively, Advertiser  301  could do nothing, in which case no ads will be delivered. 
         [0030]    Referring now to  FIG. 4 , there is shown a Publisher  400 , an Advertiser A  401 , a network of online properties  402 , and a timeline  403 . In more detail, still referring to  FIG. 4 , Advertiser A  401  can pay Publisher  400  price f to advertise on property i on date t+n  403 . In this scenario, no keywords are involved; Advertiser A  401  is buying inventory directly from Publisher  400 . 
         [0031]    Referring now to  FIG. 5 , there is shown a Publisher  500 , a Broker/Reseller  501 , an Advertiser A  502 , and Advertiser B  503 . In more detail, Publisher  500  can sell a derivative instrument to Broker/Reseller  501 . In turn, Broker/Reseller  501  can resell to Advertiser A  502 . In turn, Advertiser  502  can resell the derivative instrument to Advertiser  503 . An electronic derivatives exchange or marketplace, where trading systems provide bid/ask information, can be used to facilitate these transactions. 
         [0032]    Referring now to  FIG. 6  there is shown a graph of spot prices for keywords Flowers  600  and Mothers Day  601 . In more detail, the spot price for keyword Flowers  600  is seen to fluctuate between dates May 5 and Jun. 14, achieving the highest price for this period on May 10. 
         [0033]    Referring now to  FIG. 7  there is shown a graph of estimated spot price  701  and actual spot price  700  for keyword Flowers between Jun. 24 and Jun. 27. In more detail, the estimated spot price  701  can be determined by applying any number of financial models on historical spot price data. For example, the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model can be used account for volatility and mean-reversion rate of historical prices. With an estimated future spot price, it would also be possible to calculate a discount off the future spot price for immediate payment. Furthermore, instruments derived from the underlying advertisement inventory can extend beyond keywords to radio and television timeslots, or billboard space. 
         [0034]    Potential advantages of creating derivative markets for advertisements include, without limitation, increasing the efficiency of the market for advertisements, increasing the number of participants in the market for advertisements, smoothing out revenue for publishers and market makers, and lowering the price for consumers. Specifically, the use of derivatives allows the allocation of price risk to those who want to bear the risk, thereby bringing in new market participants and making the market more efficient. Additionally, publishers selling forward contracts and options can smooth out their revenue streams in spite of seasonality effects, thereby resulting in better management of working capital, for example. Finally, the derivatives would likely result in a lower fee paid by individual advertisers to publishers that could result in savings passed on to consumers. At the same time, the derivatives can also generate greater revenues for publishers by increasing the number of market participants. 
         [0035]    While the foregoing written description of the invention enables one of ordinary skill to make and use what is considered presently to be the best mode thereof, those of ordinary skill will understand and appreciate the existence of variations, combinations, and equivalents of the specific embodiment, method, and examples herein. The invention should therefore not be limited by the above described embodiment, method, and examples, but by all embodiments and methods within the scope and spirit of the invention as claimed.