Automated advertising agency apparatuses, methods and systems

The AUTOMATED ADVERTISING AGENCY APPARATUSES, METHODS AND SYSTEMS (“AAA”) provides a platform that, in various embodiments, is configurable to provide advertisement generation and/or placement facilities leveraging real-time or near real-time updating of social media data. The AAA may be configured to automatically direct advertising purchasing, configuration and placement, guide marketing efforts, and implement marketing strategies maximizing target impact. The AAA may further be configurable to forecast financial data, such as revenues, associated with queried products or services, and to direct optimized advertising configuration, purchasing and/or placement.

This application for letters patent disclosure document describes inventive aspects that include various novel innovations (hereinafter “disclosure”) and contains material that is subject to copyright, mask work, and/or other intellectual property protection. The respective owners of such intellectual property have no objection to the facsimile reproduction of the disclosure by anyone as it appears in published Patent Office file/records, but otherwise reserve all rights.

PRIORITY CLAIMS AND RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a non-provisional of and claims priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 to prior U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/738,290, filed Dec. 17, 2012, entitled, “Automated Advertising Agency Apparatuses, Methods and Systems”; is a Continuation-In-Part of and claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §120 to co-pending United States non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 12/496,199 entitled, “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR UNITS-BASED NUMERIC INFORMATION RETRIEVAL,” filed Jul. 1, 2009; to co-pending United States non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 14/043,629 entitled, “Market Analytics User Interface Management Apparatuses, Methods and Systems,” filed Oct. 1, 2013, which in turn claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to prior United States provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/708,129 entitled, “Market Analytics User Interface Management Apparatuses, Methods and Systems,” filed Oct. 1, 2012; and to co-pending U.S. non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 13/252,559 entitled, “GENERALIZED DATA MINING AND ANALYTICS APPARATUSES, METHODS AND SYSTEMS,” filed Oct. 4, 2011, which in turn claims priority to prior United States non-provisional patent application Ser. No. 12/754,249 entitled, “AUTOMATED UNIT FINDING FOR NUMERIC INFORMATION RETRIEVAL,” filed Apr. 5, 2010 (issued on Sep. 25, 2012 as U.S. Pat. No. 8,275,747).

The entire contents of the aforementioned patents and applications are expressly incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD

The present innovations generally address data analytics and digital advertising, and more particularly, include AUTOMATED ADVERTISING AGENCY APPARATUSES, METHODS AND SYSTEMS.

BACKGROUND

The advent of the internet and mobile device technologies have brought about a sea change in the distribution and availability of information. Ubiquitous electronic communications have resulted in large volumes of information being generated and, often, made widely available. In addition, the rise of social media and networking has allowed users to connect with friends, form groups, and share information on an unprecedented scale.

SUMMARY

The Automated Advertising Agency Apparatuses, Methods and Systems (“AAA”) provides a platform that, in various embodiments, is configurable to provide advertisement generation and/or placement facilities leveraging real-time or near real-time updating of social media data. The AAA may be configured to automatically direct advertising purchasing, configuration and placement, guide marketing efforts, and implement marketing strategies maximizing target impact. The AAA may further be configurable to forecast financial data, such as revenues, associated with queried products or services, and to direct optimized advertising configuration, purchasing and/or placement.

The leading number of each reference number within the drawings indicates the figure in which that reference number is introduced and/or detailed. As such, a detailed discussion of reference number101would be found and/or introduced inFIG. 1. Reference number201is introduced inFIG. 2, etc.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The AUTOMATED ADVERTISING AGENCY APPARATUSES, METHODS AND SYSTEMS (hereinafter “AAA”) provides a platform that, in various embodiments, is configurable to provide interactive user interfaces reflecting market analyses and strategic planning, and to leverage real-time or near real-time updating of social media data to automatically direct advertising purchasing, configuration and placement, guide marketing efforts, and/or the like.

This disclosure details aspects of AAA. In various embodiments, the AAA may facilitate a wide variety of different uses, such as but not limited to: retrieving numerical and/or non-numerical data, trends, relationships, and/or the like from a corpus of structured and/or unstructured electronic documents; identifying similarities and/or differences for selected characteristics related to query terms; pattern-based searching and/or query refinement based on graphical interface selections; open-ended and/or endpoint-constrained traversal-mode searching; highlighting and/or suppressing outliers and/or deviations from trends, averages, means, external data, and/or the like; alerts and/or associated actions based on occurrence of data points, trends, patterns, and/or the like; discrimination of relationships, trends, patterns, and/or the like; quantitative sentiment analysis; anonymization; automated optimization and/or refinement of search results based on result trends and/or patterns; and/or the like.

It is to be understood that, depending on the particular needs and/or characteristics of a AAA user, document corpus, data resource, system architecture, processor capability, data transmission capability and/or network framework, and/or the like, various embodiments of the AAA may be implemented that facilitate a great deal of flexibility and customization.

The instant disclosure discusses embodiments primarily within the context of electronic document and data feed analysis, information retrieval and user interface presentation. However, it is to be understood that the systems described herein may be readily configured and/or customized for a wide variety of other applications and/or implementations. For example, aspects of the AAA may be configured for analyzing form inputs, images, detected and/or recorded sounds, and/or the like; facilitating natural language queries; result quality analysis and/or diagnostics; and/or the like. It is to be understood that the AAA may be further adapted to other implementations and/or data analysis and presentation applications.

FIG. 1shows an implementation of data flow for indexing between and among AAA components and/or affiliated entities in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, a AAA server101may send a request to a third party data server102(e.g., social networking sites, blogs, wilds, forums, hosted services, Web 2.0 websites, and/or the like) to retrieve source documents111, such as via one or more commands associated with an application programming interface (“API”) associated with each service and/or third party data server. In response, the third party data server(s) may provide the source documents112to the AAA server. The source documents may include structured and/or unstructured data based on a corpus of electronic documents. The AAA server may consolidate the source documents113, perform an indexing process114, and store the index data (e.g., inverted index, suffix tree, citation index, Ngram index, document-term matrix, and/or the like)115to a AAA database. In some implementations, the index may be updated in real-time, such as based on monitored web service analytics and/or social network chatter (e.g., Facebook status updates, Twitter feeds, Google trends data, and/or the like). The indexing process may include parsing and storing data to facilitate fast and accurate information analysis and retrieval. In some implementations of indexing, machine-learning may be utilized to generate the index. Keywords from each source document may be stored with positional information, such as the page on which a keyword appears, the absolute position (e.g., coordinates) where the keyword appears within a page, the relative position of the keyword in relation to other words in the page, and/or the like. Various metadata, including location, user profile, timestamp, and/or the like, of the source documents may be stored. Contextual tags may be generated, such as based on natural language processing techniques applied to document content, and/or one or more expert knowledge libraries may be utilized to optimize the index. Further detail regarding some embodiments of the generation, structure and application of the indexing process and the index data is provided in application Ser. No. 12/496,199 filed Jul. 1, 2009, entitled, “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR UNITS-BASED NUMERIC INFORMATION RETRIEVAL,” application Ser. No. 12/754,249 filed Apr. 5, 2010, entitled, “AUTOMATED UNIT FINDING FOR NUMERIC INFORMATION” (issued on Sep. 25, 2012 as U.S. Pat. No. 8,275,747) and application Ser. No. 13/252,559 filed Oct. 4, 2011, entitled, “GENERALIZED DATA MINING AND ANALYTICS APPARATUSES, METHODS AND SYSTEMS,” all of which are incorporated in their entirety herein by reference.

FIG. 2shows an implementation of logic flow for an indexing process in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, the AAA server may send a request to retrieve source documents201from the third party data server. In response to the request, the third party server may provide the source documents210to the AAA server automatically. In various implementations, the request may be general or may include narrowing constraints, such as one or more keywords, category designations, and/or the like criteria to limit or narrow the body of documents requested In one implementation, the AAA server may send the request periodically to have up-to-date source documents. In another implementation, new source documents and/or changes to existing source documents may be sent to the AAA server in real time and/or near real-time. In some implementations, if the AAA server fails to retrieve the source documents automatically from the third party server205, the administrator and/or user of the AAA may manually download the source documents215. Upon receiving the source documents220, the AAA server may consolidate the documents, scan the documents to generate index230, and store235the index data with corresponding positional, frequency, contextual information, and/or the like240. In some implementations, the AAA may determine if the system requires updates of the source documents245. If not, the indexing process of the AAA may end250. If the system is configured to check for updates of the source documents, the AAA server may proceed to send a new request to the third party server to obtain updates of the source documents.

FIG. 3Ashow an implementation of data flow for a query process between and among AAA components and/or affiliated entities in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, a user301may retrieve information by engaging a client device302and entering one or more query inputs311. In some implementations, a query does not originate with an actual user. For example, a user system305may automatically identify a query input340. In one implementation, the user system may push the identified query input to the client device through Application Programming Interface (“API”) calls. A query input311may include, for example, a keyword, numerical value, a text string, data pattern, a data feed, an audio feed, a video feed, and/or the like. The query term does not have to match exactly to the object. For example, if the user intends to retrieve results related to a particular film he may enter a partial term related to the film, such as all or some of the title, one or more actors involved with the film, a film studio, description, and/or the like as the query term or terms. The AAA may, through machine learning and/or natural language techniques, return the correct results or a list of highly related results to the user. In some implementations, the query input (whether generated by an actual user or a user system) may comprise multiple keywords, entities, patterns, and/or the like which may be analyzed in combination with one or more Boolean relationships between the terms and/or may be analyzed individually in parallel, for which different results may be presented for each term. The query input may then be transmitted315, such as via a communications network, to one or more AAA servers303, which may, in turn access one or more AAA databases304to retrieve at least one index320, which may be selected based on the query input311. A query statement may be constructed based on the query input311and used to query the at least one index to generate query results325, which may then be communicated to the client device330. The generated query results may be configured to be presented in AAA user interface (“UI”), which may then be provided to the user and/or the user system335.

FIG. 3Bshows an implementation of data flow for user interaction between and among AAA components and/or affiliated entities in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, a user301may submit a user interaction input351, such as selection of a presentation type, reconfiguration of display options, and/or the like, to the client device302, which may then be transmitted355to the AAA server303. In some implementations, the user system305may automatically generate user interaction input385, which may be pushed to the client device302through API calls. The AAA server may, in turn access one or more AAA databases304to retrieve at least one index360, which may be selected based on the user interface input351. A new query statement may be constructed based on the query input311and the user interaction input351and used to query the at least one index to generate new query results365, which may then be communicated to the client device370. The generated new query results may be reconfigured for presentation via a AAA user interface, which may then be provided to the user and/or the user system375. In an alternative implementation, the query results330based on the query input311may be stored in the client device302. Upon receiving the user interaction input351, the client device may reconfigure the query results380and provide the reconfigured query results to the user.

FIG. 4Ashows an implementation of logic flow for an intent query process in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, query terms may be received401, such as but not limited to: keywords, numerical values, text strings, data trends, data patterns, data feeds, audio feeds, video feeds, and/or the like. In one implementation, the AAA may retrieve profile data and/or multi-media data related to the query term. In one implementation, the AAA may access the AAA database to retrieve the data. In an alternative implementation, the AAA may send the retrieval request to a server. The server may or may not be the third party server where the source documents are retrieved. For example, as illustrated inFIG. 5A, if the query term received at401is related to a particular movie, the AAA may retrieve the profile data501and the poster image502related to that movie and display them in the AAA user interface. The query term does not have to match exactly to the object. For example, the user may enter partial terms as the query term, or other descriptive terms as the query terms. The AAA may, such as through machine learning and natural language techniques, return a list of direct or highly related results to the user. Returning toFIG. 4A, if the profile data and/or multi-media data related to the query term are needed from the user404, the AAA may receive corresponding data input from the user406, which may then be stored and displayed408.

In some embodiments, the AAA may access the AAA database to retrieve keywords associated with positive and/or negative intent indicators410. For example, the positive intent indicators may be “I want to watch Movie ABC,” “I am going to watch the new ABC movie this weekend,” and/or the like. The negative intent indicators may be “I do not want to watch Movie ABC, “I will never watch an ABC movie again,” and/or the like. Keywords associated with the positive and/or negative intent indicators may be generated using natural language processing, machine learning, table look-ups, rule-based analysis, and/or the like techniques. A query statement based on the query term and the intent indicator keywords may be constructed and used to query the index412. If matches are identified414, query results are generated416. If matches are not identified, the AAA may generate an error message418notifying the user. In one implementation, the AAA may provide an option to the user to revise the query term. In another implementation, the AAA may retrieve updated source documents from the third party server and determine if new matches are identified.

FIG. 4Bshows an implementation of logic flow for an Intent Driver Panel in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, upon obtaining the intent indicator query results444, as discussed inFIG. 4A, the AAA may access the AAA database and retrieve correlated intent driver categories and associated intent driver keywords. Intent drivers may, in some implementations, reflect reasons that consumers intend to purchase a product445. For example, as illustrated inFIG. 5A, when a consumer discusses his intent to watch a particular movie on a social networking website, he may mention that “I want to watch Movie ABC because I like their clothes.” Based on this discussion, the intent driver keyword may be extracted from “I like their clothes,” and the associated intent driver category (i.e., intent driver) may be “Costume”504. As another example, a consumer may mention that “I am going to watch Movie ABC because I love explosion scenes.” Based on this discussion, the intent driver keyword may be extracted from “I love explosion scenes,” and the associated intent driver category may be “Special Effects”507. Further detail about generating the correlated intent driver categories and associated intent driver keywords is discussed inFIG. 4D.

Returning toFIG. 4B, having obtained the intent driver keywords and intent driver categories, the AAA may filter the query results416with intent driver keywords450, and determine relevancy of each intent driver keyword in the query results455. Following that, a relevancy of each driver category may be determined460. In some implementations, the relevancy may be determined based on weighted scoring. In some implementations, the relevancy of each driver category may be an aggregated relevancy of each intent driver keyword in the category. The AAA may sort the intent driver categories based on the relevancy, which may be displayed in relation to the comparable and/or associated query subjects.

In some implementations, the user may desire to see the relevancy of the intent driver categories relative to the different ranges of the comparable query subjects. The AAA may receive a zoom-out (or zoom-in) reconfiguration command through a user interface from the user464(e.g., a click on the Intent Driver Panel of the UI, and/or the like). Upon receiving such request, the AAA may reconfigure the results468and display to the user the relevancy of the intent driver categories relative to a full range or a smaller range of the comparable query subjects. The user may enter a new query input466and the AAA may process from step401as inFIG. 4A.

FIG. 4Cshows an implementation of logic flow for an Intent Driver Interactive Slider in one embodiment of AAA operation. A user may desire to see the correlation between the intent drivers and quantities associated with the query term. For example, a producer of a movie may desire to obtain a strategic marketing analysis of the movie. As an example, if there are additional resources (e.g., budget) that may be spent to improve a feature of the movie in order to increase the revenue, the AAA may determine how much revenue may be brought about by spending the additional resources on one or more features (e.g., costumes, special effects, star power, and/or the likes). In one implementation, the AAA may automatically allocate resources according to an optimization protocol (e.g., allocating resources to features in proportion to their relative impact on revenue). As another example, the AAA may determine how changing one intent driver would result in changes in another intent driver required to keep a factor, such as projected revenue, fixed (e.g., by adjusting the first driver to a desired level, then adjusting the second driver until revenue is restored to its original value). In some implementations, the AAA may receive a revenue analysis command from the user470and may access the AAA database and/or a third party database to retrieve and/or determine a numerical value of revenue related to the query term(s)472. If the numerical value of revenue is not available474, the AAA may generate an error message476. If the numerical value of revenue is available, the AAA may proceed to retrieve numerical values of each intent driver category478from the AAA database. The numerical values of the intent drivers may be related to the relevancy calculated from step460fromFIG. 4B. Upon receiving the numerical values of the intent drivers, the user may provide input about which variables they would like to have fixed in order for the AAA to provide the analysis480. In some implementations, variables which may be held fixed may include one or more intent drivers, revenue, budget, release date, marketing target group, and/or the like. In one implementation, the AAA may restrict the number of variables allowed to be held fixed. If the user selected fixed variables are more or less than the threshold481, the AAA may generate an error message482. If an appropriate number of fixed variables is received, the user may proceed to provide input on changes of one or more independent variables483. In some implementations, the user may provide the input by sliding an interactive bar element (e.g.,515as shown inFIG. 5B) in the Global Intent Drivers panel. The AAA may determine the change in the numerical value of the independent variable484, and correspondingly calculate the change of dependent variable resulting from the change of the independent variable486, such as based on one or more statistical regression models. Upon receiving the calculated change of the dependent variable, the AAA may calculate and display the new value of the dependent variable488. For example, if the user would like to learn how much revenue may be generated by spending additional resources on costumes, the independent variable may be the intent driver “Costume,” and the dependent variable may be the revenue, with other factors held fixed. A determination may be made as to whether a new command has been received from the user496, such as for additional revenue analysis, and the AAA may return to470if that determination is affirmative. Otherwise, the revenue analysis procedure may conclude.

FIG. 4Dshows an implementation of logic flow for Intent Driver Selection in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, the AAA may determine the intent driver keywords and associated intent driver categories based on query subjects comparable to the query terms. The AAA may access revenue data and source documents of the query subjects420. For example, if the query term is “Movie ABC” the AAA may retrieve source documents of past movies, movies in the same genre, movies made by the same company, and/or the like. The AAA may also retrieve revenue data associated with selected movies (e.g., box office revenue). Upon receiving the source documents of the query subjects, the AAA may query the source documents422and analyze query results to identify intent driver keywords and associated intent driver categories424. In some implementations, the intent drivers are selected based on which topical clusters of words have been shown to be historically correlated with revenue values and/or outcomes. In one implementation, topical clusters of words may be learned by automated machine learning cluster techniques. Once the intent driver categories are determined, the AAA may select one or more intent driver categories426, and determine the correlation between each selected intent driver category and the revenue428. In some implementations, various regression techniques (e.g., linear regression, logistic regression, and/or the like) may be used to determine the correlation, wherein the intent driver category may be the independent variable, and the revenue may be the dependent variable. If there are more intent driver categories430, the AAA may select the next intent driver category and determine its correlation. In some implementations, the regression model may engage multiple independent variables at the same time and determine the correlation. Once the AAA determines the correlation for each intent driver category, it may sort the intent driver categories by descending correlation432. In one implementation, the AAA may select one or more intent driver categories that have highest correlation with revenue and store them to the AAA database434.

FIGS. 5A-5Bshow implementations of user interface for an Intent Driver Panel in one embodiment of AAA operation. With reference toFIG. 5A, in some implementations, when a user enters a movie title or related keywords as a query term, the AAA may retrieve profile data501, a poster image502, and/or the like information related to the movie and display them in the AAA user interface. In some implementations, the profile data may include, but are not limited to, MPAA rating, screens, genre, budget, marketing, target, and/or the like. The object (e.g., the movie or other query target) may be an event happening currently, at an earlier time, and/or at a future time (e.g., releases in 2 months). The UI may also display highly correlated intent drivers for query subjects comparable to the query term. For example, for movies comparable to a particular movie, intent drivers with the highest correlation to the revenue may be costume504, trailer505, franchise506, and special effects507. Each intent driver may be displayed as a bar from lowest relevancy (e.g., lightest color on the left) to highest relevancy (e.g., darkest color on the right). The Global Intent Drivers panel503may also display the relevancy of each intent driver for the query term. For example, the handle508on each bar may represent the relevancy of the intent driver for the queried movie relative to that of movies comparable to it. For intent drivers “Costume” and “Trailer,” the handles are at the far right side of the bars, which may represent that intent to watch the movie is more of a consequence of costume and trailer as compared to other comparable movies. In various implementations, these other movies considered in the Global Intent Drivers panel503may be all movies released in the past, movies in the same genre as the queried movie, movies by the same director, movies with the same leading actor, and/or the like. For the intent driver “Franchise,” correlation with intent to watch the movie is high in relation to other comparable movies, but there are movies that have higher intent correlation with “Franchise” than the queried movie. For the intent driver “Special Effects,” correlation of intent to watch the queried movie with special effects is medium in relation to other comparable movies. In some implementations, the user may slide the handle508to interact with the AAA and be presented with a revenue analysis, such as discussed inFIG. 4C.

With reference toFIG. 5B, in some implementations, the user may desire to see the relevancy of the intent driver categories relative to the different ranges of the comparable query subjects. As described inFIG. 4Bsteps464and468, the AAA may receive a zoom-out (or zoom-in) reconfiguration command through a user interface from the user464(e.g., a click on the Intent Driver Panel of the UI511, and/or the like). Upon receiving such request, the AAA may reconfigure the results468and display to the user the relevancy of the intent driver categories relative to a full range or a smaller range of the comparable query subjects. The intent driver bars may be presented in different colors, e.g., may be red in the lower range of the bar, white in the middle range of the bar, green in the higher range of the bar, and/or the like. In one implementation, lower range of the bar may indicate lower intent, and higher range of the bar may indicate higher intent.

FIG. 6shows an implementation of logic flow for an Intent By Demographic Panel in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, a user may desire to learn demographic distributions related to people who have shown positive and/or negative intent with regard to the query term. An example use of the intent by demographic information may be to inform a user and/or automated system to more efficaciously allocate future marketing spending for better consumer targeting. The AAA may obtain intent indicator query results601which include query results filtered with positive intent indicator keywords. One implementation of generating intent indicator query results is discussed inFIG. 4A. The AAA may collapse the source documents included in the query results based on a user field602, in order to identify unique individual users603. The user field may, in various implementations, be user name, user identifier, user's IP address, user device address (e.g., MAC address), and/or the like. The AAA may proceed to retrieve demographic information of the identified users from the AAA database and/or third party database(s)605. The demographic information may include gender, ethnicity, age, location, employment status, household income, and/or the like. If the demographic information is not available615, the AAA may generate an error message. Upon obtaining the demographic information, the AAA may calculate, such as on a user basis, demographic distribution for each demographic category (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, and/or the like)616for display617. The distribution may be presented, for example, in percentage and/or absolute values.

In some implementations, the user may desire to see the demographic distributions of the query term relative to industry averages. The AAA may receive a reconfiguration command through a user interface from the user618(e.g., a click on the Intent by Demographic Panel of the UI710, and/or the like). The AAA may then retrieve and calculate the average of demographic distributions for each demographic category620and provide those averages and/or comparison therewith for display625.

FIGS. 7A-7Bshow implementations of user interface for an Intent By Demographic Panel in one embodiment of AAA operation. With reference toFIG. 7A, the Intent by Demographic Panel701is shown with non-limiting exemplary demographic categories: gender702, age703, and ethnicity704. The user may have the option to add additional demographic categories or delete current ones. The example in the figure shows that 68% of people who intend to watch the queried movie are male, and 32% are female. Half of people who intend to watch the queried movie are younger than 25 years old, and half are older. 54% of people who intend to watch the queried movie are White, 23% are Hispanic, 10% are Black, 10% are Asian, and 3% are other ethnicities. In some implementations, the demographic distribution may be presented in different colors and/or configured in accordance with other visual cues.

With reference toFIG. 7B, the user may desire to see the demographic distribution of the query term relative to industry average. As discussed with reference toFIG. 6, the AAA may receive a reconfiguration command through a user interface from the user618(e.g., a click on the Intent by Demographic Panel of the UI710, and/or the like). The AAA may retrieve and calculate the average of demographic distributions for each demographic category for display715. The industry average may be presented, for example, as a dotted line across all demographic categories.

FIG. 8shows an implementation of logic flow for an Intent By Interest Group Panel in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, a user may desire to know what other interests and/or interest groups are likely for consumers having a positive and/or negative intent with respect to the query terms. The user and/or one or more automated systems may then make strategic decisions related to the query term based on the information learned about consumers' other interests. For example, in the movie industry, the AAA may indicate that people who have shown interest in a particular movie also have interests in a particular TV show. The AAA may then direct placement of the trailer or other marketing materials for the movie during the broadcast of that TV show to target consumers likely to be receptive. In some implementations, the AAA may obtain intent indicator query results801, which may include query results filtered with positive intent indicator keywords. One implementation of generating intent indicator query results is discussed inFIG. 4A. The AAA may receive interest group keywords and associated group categories from AAA database(s)802. The AAA may filter the intent indicator query results with interest group keywords805and determine the relevancy of each interest group keyword810. In one implementation, the AAA may calculate the average relevancy of all interest group keywords815. The user may be provided with the option to select different interest group categories820. If the user does not provide an input on the interest group category, the AAA may identify an interest group category related to the query term835, such as based on tags and/or metadata associated with interest group category identifiers in one or more AAA databases. If a match is identified840, the AAA may sort and display the results in the order or relevancy in the identified interest group845. If a match is not identified840, the AAA may display the results in the order of relevancy regardless of interest group category850. If the user provides an input on the interest group category selection820, the AAA may identify keywords in the selected category822, and sort and display the results in the order of relevancy of each keyword in the selected category825. When the user provides a new input on the interest group category selection830, the AAA may return to820. The user may also enter a new query input855to cause the AAA to return to801.

FIGS. 9A-9Cshow implementations of user interface for an Intent By Interest Group Panel in one embodiment of AAA operation. With reference toFIG. 9A, the Intent by Interest Group panel901is shown for interest group category “Television,” as one exemplary implementation. People who have shown intent to watch the queried movie may have also indicated interests in interest group keywords such as SpongeBob SquarePants902, Dragon Ball Z903, Drake & Josh904, The Big Bang Theory905, Regular Show906, House907, The Vampire Diaries908, True Blood909, History910, NCIS911, and/or the like. In one implementation, the interest group keywords may be listed from the highest to lowest relevancy. In one implementation, the UI may also display the industry average915as a dotted line.

With reference toFIG. 9B, the AAA may receive an interest group category selection command through the user interface from the user (e.g., a click on the Intent by Interest Group Panel of the UI920, and/or the like). In the illustrated example, the interest group category is changed to “Movies”. People who have shown intent to watch a particular movie may have also indicated interests in interest group keywords identified as related to movies, such as The Amazing Spider-Man921, Spider-Man922, Spider-Man 2923, Spiderman924, Spiderman 3925, The Princess Bride926, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy927, Thor928, Avatar929, Star Trek930, and/or the like. In one implementation, the interest group keywords may be listed from the highest to lowest relevancy.

With reference toFIG. 9C, the AAA may receive another interest group category selection command through the user interface (e.g., a click on the Intent by Interest Group Panel of the UI940, and/or the like). The interest group category may change to “All,” which includes all interest group categories and keywords. People who have shown intent to watch a particular movie may have also indicated interests in general interest group keywords such as The Amazing Spider-Man941, Spider-Man942, Basketball943, Diary of a Wimpy Kid944, Spider-Man 2945, Camping946, Cooking947, History948, Movies949, NCIS930, and/or the like. In one implementation, the interest group keywords may be listed from the highest to lowest relevancy among all interest group keywords.

FIG. 10shows an implementation of logic flow for a data expansion interaction in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, the AAA may receive a data expansion command1001through the user interface (e.g., a click on Male in the Intent by Demographic panel in the UI, a click on NCIS in the Intent by Interest Group panel in the UI and/or the like). The AAA may determine whether the command is related to a demographic category1005, or an interest group keyword1010. If neither is the case, the AAA may generate an error message1015. If the command is a demographic category1005, the AAA may identify the demographic category corresponding to the input, and proceed to filter query results with the received demographic category1020. For example, with reference toFIG. 11A, if the data expansion command received at1001is a click on “Male,” the AAA may filter query results to leave results generated by male people only. Otherwise, if the command is on an interest group keyword, the AAA may identify the interest group keyword corresponding to the input, and proceed to filter query results with the received interest group keyword1055. After query results are filtered with either the demographic category or the interest group keyword, the AAA may retrieve the interest group keywords within the filtered query results1025. The AAA may determine the relevancy of each interest group keyword within the filtered query results1060, and retrieve intent driver keywords and associated driver categories within the filtered query results1030. If intent driver keywords are available, then the AAA may determine the relevancy of each intent driver keyword within the filtered query results1065. The AAA may then retrieve original keywords appearing in the source documents within the filtered query results1035and determine the relevancy of each original keyword1070. The AAA may also display keywords in each category ordered by their relevancy within the category1075. The categories may include, but are not limited to: interest groups, intent drivers if applicable, and original document keywords. The AAA may check whether there is a new query input1050and, if so, the AAA may return to1001to receive another data expansion command.

FIGS. 11A-11Cshow implementations of user interface for data expansion interaction in one embodiment of AAA operation. With reference toFIG. 11A, in some implementations, when a user clicks on the demographic category “Male,” additional data may be presented related to males who have shown intent to watch the queried movie. In the data expansion panel1101, it may also show their interest group keywords1102, intent drivers1103, statements about the queried movie1104, and/or the like. With reference toFIG. 11B, in some implementations, when a user clicks on the demographic category “Hispanic”1111, interest group keywords1112and discussions keywords (e.g., original keywords in the source documents)1113may be presented related to people with Hispanic ethnicity who have shown intent to watch the queried movie. With reference toFIG. 11C, in some implementations, when a user clicks on the interest group keyword “NCIS”1121, other interest group keywords1122and discussions keywords (e.g., original keywords in the source documents)1123may be presented related to people with interests in the NCIS TV show who have shown intent to watch the queried movie.

FIG. 12shows an implementation of logic flow for data comparison interaction in one embodiment of AAA operation. In some implementations, when a drag and drop data comparison command is received1201, the AAA may determine whether, the requested comparison is with demographic categories1205or interest group keywords1210. If neither is the case, then the AAA may generate an error message1215. If the requested comparison is with demographic categories1205, then the AAA may identify the two demographic categories associated with the drag and drop command1220and filter query results with the two identified demographic categories1225. Otherwise, if the requested comparison is with interest group keywords1210, then the AAA may identify the two interest group keywords associated with the drag and drop command1265and filter query results with the two identified interest group keywords1270. In alternative implementations, other numbers of demographic categories and/or interest group keywords may be associated with the drag and drop command. The AAA may then retrieve demographic distribution information for each interest group keyword1275and compare the demographic distribution in each demographic category for each interest group keyword1280. Then the AAA may determine the interest group keyword which has a higher demographic distribution in each demographic category1285. In either case, where the requested comparison is with demographic categories or with interest group keywords, AAA may retrieve interest group keywords within the filtered query results1230. Then the AAA may determine the relevancy of each interest group keyword within the filtered query results1235. Next the AAA may identify a number of keywords (e.g., five, in one implementation) that have highest relevancy1240. The AAA may then retrieve the original keywords appearing in the source documents within the filtered query results1245and determine the relevancy of each original keyword1250and display the comparison outputs, which include but are not limited to: the two demographic categories or interest group keywords, the corresponding demographic distribution, the retrieved interest group keywords, the original keywords in the order of relevancy in each category1255, and/or the like. The AAA may also check whether there is a new query input1260and, if so, return to1201to receive a new drag and drop data comparison command.

FIGS. 13A-13Fshow implementations of user interface for data comparison interaction in one embodiment of AAA operation. With reference toFIG. 13A, in some implementations, a user may start the data comparison, for example between male and female people who intend to watch the queried movie by dragging the Male entry and dropping it on the Female entry1301.FIG. 13Bshows an implementation of a side-by-side comparison between male and female who intend to watch the queried movie. In one implementation, a pop-up comparison window may present the selected demographic categories in proximity to an indicator of the strength of intent correlation with that category1311. The interface may also include information on other interest groups correlated with the demographic category and/or the original query term1312, as well as words or phrases drawn from source documents in correlation with the demographic categories and/or query terms1313. With reference toFIG. 13C, in some implementations, a user may start the data comparison, for example between ethnic groups, by dragging one ethnic group, in this case “White,” onto another, in this case “Hispanic”1321.FIG. 13Dshows an implementation of a side-by-side comparison between white and Hispanic individuals who intend to watch the queried movie. In one implementation, a pop-up comparison window may present the selected ethnic categories in proximity to an indicator of the strength of intent correlation with that category1331. The interface may also include information on other interest groups correlated with the ethnic category and/or the original query term1332, as well as words or phrases drawn from source documents in correlation with the ethnic categories and/or query terms1333. With reference toFIG. 13E, in some implementations, a user may start the data comparison, for example between interest groups, by dragging and dropping one interest group, in this case “SpongeBob SquarePants,” onto another, in this case “Dragon Ball Z”1341.FIG. 13Fshows an implementation of a side-by-side comparison between information pertaining to source documents correlated with the query term and each interest group within the comparison. In one implementation, a pop-up comparison window may present the selected interest groups in proximity to an indicator of the strength of correlation of each interest group with the query term1351. The interface may also include demographic categories correlated with the interest group and/or the original query term1352, other interest groups correlated with those identified demographic categories, and words or phrases drawn from source documents in correlation with the interest groups, demographic categories, and/or query terms1353.

FIGS. 14A-14Dshow implementations of logic flow for revenue forecasting in one embodiment of AAA operation. A product query may be received1401, such as comprising the name and/or other identifying indicia associated with one or more products. Product profile information and/or associated multimedia may then be retrieved based on the query1405. A determination may then be made as to whether any product profile information has been provided by the user1410, such as product descriptions, ratings, multimedia data, and/or the like. If so, the user-supplied product profile data and/or multimedia data may be received at1415. The AAA may then retrieve a collection of keywords associated with positive or negative intent indicators from an AAA database1420, and use those keywords in conjunction with the product query terms to query index data1425. A determination may be made as to whether any matches are identified by this query1430and, if not, one or more error handling procedures may be undertaken, such as providing an error message to the user1435. If a match is identified at1430, then query results may be retrieved1440and filtered according to one or more positive and/or negative intent drivers1445. The AAA may then determine the relevancy of each positive and negative intent driver1450within the filtered results, and display the positive and negative intend drivers to the user, such as sorted in order of relevancy1455. The AAA may then retrieve demographic information associated with source documents (e.g., demographic information associated with users submitting social network updates and/or feed data)1460. Based on the retrieved demographic information, the AAA may calculate and display a distribution and/or other statistical information associated with each demographic category and associated intent indicators1465.

Proceeding toFIG. 14B, the AAA may determine whether a data expansion command on one of the demographic categories from1465is received1467. If not, the AAA may proceed to1485ofFIG. 14C, to be described below. However, if a data expansion command is received at1467, the AAA may retrieve positive and/or negative intent drivers associated with the demographic group associated with the command1469, and may determine the relevancy of each retrieved intent driver1471. Positive and/or negative intent drivers may then be provided for display, such as sorted in order of relevancy1473. The AAA may then retrieve one or more interest group keywords and associated group categories from an AAA database1475, and filter query results with the retrieved keywords1477. The relevance of each of the interest group keywords among the query results may then be determined1479, followed by the average relevancy of all interest group keywords1481. The query results may then be sorted, such as in order of relevancy associated with each interest group keyword, and provided for display1483.

The AAA may proceed to1485inFIG. 14C, whereby a determination is made as to whether an update to index information, source documents, query results, and/or the like is desired1485. If not, then the AAA may proceed to1495inFIG. 14D. Otherwise, if an affirmative determination is made at1485, the AAA may send one or more requests to one or more third party servers to update source documents1486. New index data may be generated based on the updated source documents1487and compared with existing index data1488to determine if any changes exist1489. If not, then the AAA may proceed to1495inFIG. 14D. Otherwise, if changes exist, new positive and/or negative intent indicators may be displayed in the user interface1490. The AAA may further retrieve new demographic information associated with the updated source documents1491and compare it with existing demographic information in each positive and/or negative intent indicator category1492. A determination may be made as to whether any changes can or have been identified1493and, if not, the AAA may proceed to1495inFIG. 14D. Otherwise, changes of demographic information, associated positive and/or negative intent indicators, and/or addresses of the source documents may be displayed1495.

The AAA may proceed to1495inFIG. 14D, whereby a determination may be made as to whether a revenue forecast command is received. If not, the AAA may proceed to1404. Otherwise, if a revenue forecast command has been received, the AAA may retrieve historical revenue data associated with the queried product for a particular (e.g., fixed) period or periods of time1496. In some implementations, the period of time for which historical revenue data is retrieved may be specified as part of the revenue forecast command. The AAA may then correlate positive and/or negative intent drivers with historical revenue data associated with one or more corresponding time periods1497. In one implementation, such correlation may be based on occurrences of intent drivers and historical revenue information in a given document, related collection of documents, and/or the like and/or on regression analysis associated therewith. Leveraging the determined correlation, the AAA may inspect current intent drivers (e.g., associated with a current and/or recent period of time) and determine projected and/or future revenue, such as by determining an average estimated revenue, an estimate error interval, and/or the like1498. In one implementation, these determinations may be based on one or more statistical regression models derived from determined correlations of intent drivers with historical revenue data. A determination may be made as to whether the estimated revenue represents an increase over one or more prior periods1499and, if so, a positive overall outlook indicator may be generated1402and/or provided. Otherwise, a negative overall outlook indicator may be generated1403and/or provided. In one implementation, the determination of revenue increase may be made by comparing an average estimated and/or forecast revenue, estimated error interval, and/or the like with associated prior revenues and/or estimated revenues. In some implementations, a positive and/or negative outlook indicator may comprise a database record, a report, a user interface element, and/or the like. A determination may be made as to whether a new query input has been received1404and, if so, the AAA may return to1401inFIG. 14A. Otherwise, a revenue forecast process may conclude. Although, the operation of the AAA in connection withFIGS. 14A-Dis described in terms of revenue forecasting, it is to be understood that this choice is for illustrative purposes, and that a variety of other quantities may be forecast in a similar manner, such as but not limited to costs, profits, prices, demand levels, supply levels, and/or the like.

FIG. 15shows an implementation of user interface for revenue forecasting in one embodiment of AAA operation. An interface similar to that shown in the example ofFIG. 15may be provided for display to a user in connection with the process depicted inFIGS. 14A-Dand/or in connection with a product query, revenue forecast inquiry, and/or the like. In one implementation, an interface area may include product information, logo, picture, description, and/or the like product information associated with a product query1501. The area may further include a graph or other illustration depicting past, present and/or forecast revenue, estimated error intervals, and/or the like. In one implementation, an interface area may be displayed which includes a sales outlook indicator1508, such as may be generated according toFIG. 14D. The interface may further be configured with indicators of prior and/or historical outlook data1507, such as according to a color-coding scheme and/or other visual cues to reflect outlook values in various time periods. In one implementation, an interface area may be displayed which includes indications of segments, demographic groups, intent drivers, and/or the like associated with the query terms for which a change has occurred in the significance of the segment, group, driver, and/or the like in impacting, for example, the revenue associated with the queried item1502. In one implementation, an interface area may be displayed which includes positive and/or negative intent indicator trends, such as resolved according to demographic categories, age groups, ethnicities, geographic affiliations, group affiliations, and/or the like1504. In one implementation, the interface may be configured to react to a click, mouse-over, and/or the like engagement of an area and/or interface element corresponding to a demographic group to display a pop-up window or the like interface element depicting positive and/or negative intent drivers, reflecting the factors that are significant for that demographic group to drive purchases or to drive against purchases of the queried item1505. In one implementation, an interface area may be displayed which includes global intent drivers1503, such as may reflect intent drivers determined to be most significant across all or a subset of demographic groups in driving towards or away from purchases of the queried product.

FIG. 16shows an implementation of logic flow for advertisement optimization in one embodiment of AAA operation. A process similar to that depicted in the example ofFIG. 16may be employed by the AAA in some implementations to optimize the configuration, purchasing and/or placement of advertisements according to trends, intent drivers, and/or the like identified from real time or near real time updates to social media data. User input pertaining to advertising optimization may be received1601, such as an indication as to whether the user wishes to optimize advertising placement or advertising construction. For example, a determination may be made as to whether the received input indicates a desire to optimize advertising placement1605. If not, then a determination may be made as to whether the received input indicates a desire to optimize advertising construction1640. If this determination is also negative, the AAA may provide an error message1645, such as to indicate to the user that an acceptable optimization input has not been received. In alternative implementations, the AAA may be configured to admit other optimization inputs and/or routines.

If an affirmative determination is reached at1605, the AAA may obtain interest group keywords associated with a given advertisement, product, service, and/or the like1610and identify one or more such keywords with highest relevancy1615, such as according to the significance of those keywords in determining the likelihood of interest of a given group (e.g., based on the correlation between the keywords and one or more interest indicators). Interest group keywords identified as most relevant and/or significant may be correlated with one or more advertising placement targets1620, such as according to a look-up table, rule framework, and/or the like. Ad placement may then be determined and/or effectuated according to the correlated ad placement targets1625. In one implementation, ad placement targets and/or ad placement actions may pertain to the timing and/or location of an advertisement (e.g., placement of a web-based advertisement on a particular webpage within a particular range of times). The AAA may subsequently monitor the change of relevancy and/or significance of interest a group keywords1630and, if a change is identified1635, may make a determination as to whether one or more change conditions have been satisfied1636. For example, in one implementation, a change determination may comprise comparing a degree of change of a relevancy and/or significance score (e.g., correlation value) to a threshold value to determine if the threshold has been violated. If the change condition is satisfied at1636, then AAA may return to1620. Otherwise, if the change condition is not satisfied, or if no change is identified at1635, the ad optimization process may conclude.

If an affirmative determination is reached at1640, indicating a desired ad construction optimization, the AAA may obtain intent driver keywords associated with a given advertisement, product, service, and/or the like1650, and may identify keywords with highest relevancy1655, such as according to the significance of those keywords in impacting the efficacy, visibility, and/or the like of an advertisement and/or the likelihood of purchase of and/or interest in an associated product or service (e.g., based on correlations between the keywords and indicators of advertisement efficacy, customer interest and/or purchase consummation derived from the document corpus). Intent driver keywords identified as most relevant and/or significant may be correlated with one or more advertising construction options1660, such as according to a look-up table, rule framework, and/or the like. In one implementation, an advertising construction option may pertain to the configuration, arrangement, selection, color, highlighting, textual content, and/or the like of advertising features, such as advertising copy, images, sounds or audio content, states of animation, video content, and/or the like. In one implementation, an advertising construction option may be configured as an XML document. Ad configuration may then be determined and/or effectuated according to the correlated ad construction option1665. The AAA may subsequently monitor the change of relevancy and/or significance of intent driver keywords1670and, if a change is identified1675, may make a determination as to whether one or more change conditions have been satisfied1680. For example, in one implementation, a change determination may comprise comparing a degree of change of a relevancy and/or significance score to a threshold value to determine if the threshold has been violated. If the change condition is satisfied at1680, then AAA may return to1660. Otherwise, if the change condition is not satisfied, or if no change is identified at1675, the ad optimization process may conclude.

In some embodiments, the AAA may be configured to automatically analyze real-time social media data feeds and generate and/or implement one or more advertising, marketing, political canvassing and/or the like strategies. For example, the AAA may be configured to recognize and/or target demographic and/or customer interest groups having high or highest elasticity to drive revenue lift. This may be achieved, in one implementation, by referencing intent driver categories sorted according to revenue correlation (432inFIG. 4D), the intent driver category with highest correlation to revenue (434), and/or elasticity determinations associated therewith, such as may be sorted or grouped according to demographic categories, customer characteristics, and/or the like. In one implementation, revenue lift elasticity of a particular group may represent the expected degree of customer response (e.g., in terms of sales) for a particular system action, as determined according to observed correlations between revenue and intent drivers in a document corpus, such as including one or more social media data feeds.

The AAA may also be configured to recognize particular messages and/or message elements correlated with revenue and/or revenue lift, which are associated with driving customers within a particular target group towards desired action, such as the optimal generation of revenue. Message recognition may, in some implementations be based on the natural language analysis of content from resources such as online comments, social media chatter (e.g., within a particular friend network, demographic cross section, across an entire social media web service membership, and/or the like), test or training document collections, and/or the like, as well as historical training thereover. For example, the AAA may identify which messages drive one or more demographic groups towards purchasing a particular product according to the natural language analysis of social media data feeds associated with consummation of product purchases for that product or associated products. In one implementation, the AAA may employ advertising construction optimization, such as according to the example embodiment shown inFIG. 16, to identify intent driver keywords with highest relevancy to driving elastic target groups towards desired actions, correlate identified intent driver keywords with advertisement construction options, and develop and place advertisements based on those options with real time update capability according to continuous analysis of a time-varying data feed. Intent driver keyword identification, ad construction option correlation, and/or available ad construction options may be resolved uniquely for different target groups, customer characteristics, data feed sources, and/or the like. Advertisement generation by the AAA may, in various embodiments, include a variety of different advertising formats, such as but not limited to: display advertising, search engine result previews, social media comments, social media chatter, microblogging, emails, content marketing, political messaging, public awareness campaigning, audio or video content creation, and/or the like.

The AAA may further be configured to discover inventory targets, such as for the placement of advertisements of various formats, including AAA generated advertisements and/or third party advertisements associated with particular tags, indexing, and/or the like. Inventory targets may include, but are not limited to, television and/or radio programs, podcasts, blogs and/or particular blog entries, social media web services, websites, electronic billboards, email lists, search engine result pages, geographic locations, times of day, times of year, types of media and/or the like according to determined correlations between inventory target placements and revenue lift resolved and/or averaged across various demographic groups and/or customer characteristics. In one implementation, the AAA may employ advertising placement optimization, such as according to the example embodiment shown inFIG. 16, to identify intent driver keywords with highest relevancy to driving elastic target groups towards desired actions, correlate identified intent driver keywords with inventory targets (1620), and place advertisements according to those correlated targets, with real time update capability according to continuous analysis of one or more time-varying data feeds. Intent driver keyword identification, ad placement target correlation, and/or available ad placement target options may be resolved uniquely for different target groups, customer characteristics, data feed sources, and/or the like.

In one implementation, the AAA may be configured to automatically generate and/or place advertisements without ongoing user interaction, such as based on continuously and/or periodically monitored data feeds. Automatic ad generation and placement may be coordinated to direct advertisements to targeted demographic and/or customer characteristic groups with maximal impact and advertising efficacy. In another implementation, the AAA may be configured to present selected advertising generation options in connection with selected inventory targets to a user interface, wherein a user may connect generation options to inventory targets (e.g., by drag-and-drop) to initiate an automated process of advertisement generation and placement according to the specified relationships. In one implementation, the AAA may be configured to determine a price associated with a particular advertisement generation and/or inventory target placement strategy, such as by an internal pricing model or database and/or by providing strategy parameters to one or more third party systems configured to return advertising pricing information. A user, having the opportunity to inspect displayed strategy option pricing, may be provided with an interface button initiating automated purchase, generation and/or placement of advertisements according to one or more system designed strategies selected by the user. In another implementation, the AAA may automatically inspect displayed strategy option pricing and initiate purchase, generation and/or placement of advertisements, such as based on one or more defined rules (e.g., purchase the advertisement when its price is less than a threshold).

In some implementations, the AAA may be configured with an API having commands for automatically populating fields within the API of a digital service provider associated with an advertising platform. Automatic population may be effectuated in the service provider API, for example, by a user dragging an advertisement generation option onto an inventory target. In another implementation, automatic population may be effectuated by a user dragging an advertisement generation option or inventory target onto a target demographic group, to initiate an automated advertisement consummation (i.e., inventory target selection for dropped advertisement generation option, and vice versa) seeking to maximize target demographic impact. In another implementation, automatic population may be effectuated by a user dragging a creative advertisement component (e.g., image, video, audio, copyrighting, slogan, and/or the like) onto a target demographic, initiating an automated process of advertisement generation and/or selection as well as inventory target identification, to create and place advertisements with maximal target group impact.

In some implementations, AAA data feed resources may be grouped in order to target particular associated demographic groups and/or to amplify model signal associated with particular target groups and/or data feed resource characteristics. For example, in one implementation, advertisements associated with children's programming may be aggregated as input and training to the AAA for driving generation and/or placement of children's advertising. In another implementation, advertisement generation options and/or inventory targets may be grouped according to shared characteristics, demographic associations and/or AAA determined target group correlations, such that advertising generation and/or placement may be achieved on a group-wide basis, promoting message consistency and saturation of a particular inventory target group. Groupings of advertisement generation options and/or inventory targets may be updated according to real-time and/or periodically updated analysis of data feeds. In one implementation, data feed resource grouping and/or advertisement placement option and/or inventory target groupings may be automatically associated with and/or implemented for interest groups within a social graph that are correlated with the grouping tags and/or characteristics. In one implementation, data feed resource grouping and/or advertisement placement option and/or inventory target groupings may be limited to the context of particular social groups, social networks, social graphs, interest graphs, targeted subsets thereof, and/or the like, thus allowing better targeting of advertisements within social groups. Such groupings may also allow the AAA to recognize core fan base, ethnic, geographic, family status, demographic, customer characteristic and/or other designations on an aggregate basis, thus avoiding the need for personalized information at the individual level.

In some implementations, the AAA may be configured to monitor, analyze and store content of and/or references to naturally generated social media chatter, such as microblogging entries, comments, blog entries, social media feed entries, links, social news website entries, and/or the like. Stored messages may then be accessed according to demographic targeting strategies, including desired messaging content and/or characteristics, and provided to inventory targets according to desired demographic and/or customer characteristic group impact. Analyzed social media chatter may be evaluated, tagged, categorized, and/or the like according to one or more criteria, including, but not limited to, message content, placement, exposure (e.g., the number of message recipients, according to a social network influence score associated with the message originator), originator identity, geographic association, subject matter, social network position, group affiliation, message characteristics, and/or the like. In one implementation, messages matching a threshold number of target characteristics for a particular demographic and/or customer characteristic group may qualify for distribution to those groups by the AAA. In one implementation, the AAA may act as an automated advertisement reallocation engine, converting user-generated content from an original form into one or more other forms according to expected target group impact (e.g., to maximize the effect of a message generated originally in a particular social media service). In addition to and/or instead of captured user-generated social media chatter, the AAA may also be configured to maintain a pool of meta-data tagged creative content. Stored and/or user-generated creative content tagged and/or categorized by the AAA may be employed by any of the agencies and/or interfaces described above to select and place advertisements with inventory targets according to desired impact, where the meta-data tags for selected content most closely match the desired messaging. In another implementation, advertising content may be fixed while an advertisement configuration template (e.g., ad generation and/or placement template) may be selected according to desired impact, such as where meta-data tags for the templates most closely match the desired impact.

In some embodiments, the AAA may be configured to provide automated marketing feedback, such as may be used for advertisement generation/placement optimization, reports, and/or the like. For example, the AAA and/or one or more AAA configured client modules may monitor click-through-rates, mouse-over rates, views, purchase consummation, sales, revenues, user feedback levels, and/or the like associated with advertisement content, configuration, placement, timing, and/or the like and provide real-time feedback to AAA systems for updated advertisement generation and/or placement. By monitoring the success characteristics of AAA generated and/or placed advertising, AAA feedback components may continuously update and improve advertisement characteristics to yield desired success characteristics with whatever demographic and/or customer characteristic groups are targeted. In some implementations, AAA configured modules may be provided as client software or standalone components to advertisers for message generation, message placement, advertisement success monitoring, feedback implementation, and/or the like.

In one implementation, the AAA may be configured to receive as input one or more demographic and/or customer characteristic group target profiles, indicating a distribution across such groups to which advertisement generation and/or placement resources should be allocated, and automatically initiating an advertisement generation and/or placement strategy according to those profiles. Profiles may, in one implementation, comprise XML documents correlating resource allocation levels with demographic categories, customer characteristics, and/or the like. As target group profiles are updated in real time according to evolving advertisement targeting strategies, advertisement generation and/or placement will also be updated to reflect those strategies. Updating of advertisement generation and/or placement according to updated target profiles, according to evolving data feed content, and/or according to advertising feedback may, in various implementations, be performed contemporaneously, in succession, independently, in coordination, and/or in any combination or order.

The AAA may include one or more user interfaces for marketing strategy recommendation in embodiments of AAA operation. Such an interface may display characteristics of one or more products such as, in the case where the products are movies, movie titles and release date information, as well as related images, posters, trailers, links, related tags or categories, additional information and/or the like. The interface may also include displays of demographic information reflecting, for example, demographic group interest and/or revenue correlations with the displayed product, the proportion of various demographic groups demonstrating interest in the displayed product, and/or response elasticity for each demographic group with respect to the displayed product (e.g., the expected rise in revenue from sales of the product for a given expenditure of money, advertising resources, and/or the like directed towards each demographic group). The interface may further be configured to display interest groups associated with the displayed products, which may reflect, for example, interest group interest and/or revenue correlations with the displayed product and/or response elasticity for each interest group with respect to the displayed product (e.g., the expected rise in revenue from sales of the product for a given expenditure of money, advertising resources, and/or the like directed towards each interest group). Based on evaluation of revenue correlation and/or elasticity of demographic and/or customer characteristic groups, interest groups, and/or the like as well as identification of advertisement generation and/or placement targets associated therewith, the AAA may further provide recommendations for and/or automatically implement marketing strategies according to identified target groups, advertisement generation options, inventory targets, and/or the like. The AAA may include a display of strategic recommendations, for example instructing a user to strongly push the humorousness of movie characters based on the determination that conversations related to that humorousness are driving intent to purchase the displayed product among two groups or segments or interest. In one implementation, the AAA may indicate to “strongly push” a marketing strategy initiative where a determination is made that such strategy is directed to one or more target groups having maximal or high elasticity with respect to revenue lift, and to “push” a marketing strategy where such strategy is directed to one or more target groups having secondary or lower elasticity with respect to revenue lift. In one implementation, the interface component may further indicate which target groups are driven by which advertisement generation options, inventory targets, creative content, and/or the like.

FIG. 17shows an implementation of logic flow for advertisement generation, placement, and feedback tracking in one embodiment of AAA operation. In one implementation, the AAA may identify a demographic opportunity1701, such as via the interface component discussed above. A demographic opportunity may, in one implementation, reflect a high or maximal elasticity of a particular target group with respect to revenue lift for one or more products of interest. High elasticity may be determined, for example, by comparing elasticity to a fixed or variable threshold value, an average elasticity, and/or the like. The AAA may further identify one or more interest drivers associated with targeted demographic opportunities1705, such as may represent the message content, generation options, placement options, inventory targets, and/or the like determined to most strongly drive target group interest and/or revenue lift with respect to the one or more products of interest. Advertisement creative content, advertisement generation options, placement options, inventory targets, and/or the like may then be selected and/or purchased1710based on association with the one or more intent drivers identified at1705. Such association may be based, in various implementations, on content and/or template metadata, real-time evaluation of association rules, and/or the like. The AAA may further be configured to track feedback, revenue impact, interest impact, and/or the like advertisement efficacy1715, as well as provide such data for display, update marketing strategies and/or strategy recommendations based on feedback and/or updated analysis, and/or the like.

FIG. 18shows an implementation of logic flow for self-service social advertisement activation in one embodiment of AAA operation. Upon receipt of an indication of selection of an intent driver1801, the AAA may identify one or more ad generation templates1805. In one implementation, an ad generation template may comprise a plurality of fields associated with and/or admitting various ad generation components such as, but not limited to, image, title, text, video, audio, URL, meta-data tags, related content, and/or the like. The AAA may also identify ad creative content based on the received driver1815, whereby a determination may be made as to whether natural or generated content is to be used1820. In one implementation, natural content may comprise organic and/or user-generated social media chatter and/or other user-generated content, such as may be retrieved from one or more social media web services (e.g., via social media API commands), while generated content may comprise creative content created by the AAA and/or one or more third party agencies. Generated content and/or natural content may be retrieved at1825and1820respectively, such as based on content-associated meta-data tags, content analysis, and/or the like. The AAA may then populate one or more fields of the ad generation template with retrieved ad content1835. In one implementation, a threshold number of ad generation template fields must be filled by retrieved creative content before an ad may be generated based on that ad generation template. The threshold number may, in one implementation, vary for different ad generation templates and/or groups of templates.

The AAA may further receive selection of one or more interest groups1840and identify one or more ad placement templates1845. In one implementation, an ad placement template may comprise a plurality of placement fields directing selection of ad placement targets. Ad placement template fields may include, but are not limited to, target broadcast resources, URLs, inventory target categories and/or subcategories, demographics, geographic criteria, interest, audience identifiers, and/or the like. Ad placement target information may be identified based on the received interest group selection1850and used to populate one or more fields of the ad placement template. In one implementation, a threshold number of ad placement template fields must be filled by identified target information for the ad placement template to place an ad according to that information. The threshold number may, in one implementation, vary across ad placement templates and/or groups of ad placement templates. The AAA may identify ad placement targets and/or target parameters1850, such as based on the received interest group selection. In one implementation, ad placement target information may be associated with meta-data tags, categories and/or the like, which may be queried and/or otherwise inspected based on one or more indications of the received interest group selection. The AAA may then populate the ad placement template with the identified ad placement target and/or target information1855. In one implementation, ad generation templates and/or ad placement templates may be configured as XML files. In one implementation, the ad generation template and the ad placement template may be integrated into a single, unified template.

The AAA may then initiate and/or direct generation and/or placement of an advertisement according to one or both of the ad generation template and the ad placement template1860. In one implementation, the AAA may itself effectuate generation of an advertisement according to the populated ad generation template, and provide the generated advertisement to one or more third party inventory targets and/or place the advertisement itself in one or more internal and/or locally accessible broadcast repositories. In another implementation, the AAA may provide populated ad generation and/or placement templates to one or more third party agencies for use in ad generation and/or placement.

AAA interface components may be engaged by a user, in one implementation, to facilitate user input to and/or initiate automatic population of an advertisement template with content according to selected intent drivers and/or demographic and/or customer characteristic target groups. In one implementation, a click received on an intent driver may initiate automatic population of a creative advertisement template according to content associated with the selected intent driver. In one implementation, content populating an advertisement template and/or otherwise distributed by the AAA may comprise and/or be derived from natural and/or user-generated social media chatter, such as microblogging entries, social media wall posts, blog entries, data feeds, and/or the like. Such content may be analyzed and tagged and/or categorized, as discussed above, to facilitate use in relation to one or more intent drivers, demographic groups, customer characteristic groups, inventory targets, and/or the like. In another implementation, the AAA may access creative content stored in a creative content library according to meta-data tags associated with that content, whereby meta-data tags indicate associations determined to exist in analyzed data feeds between those tags and intent drivers, demographic groups, customer characteristic groups, and/or the like. The AAA may further include interface components which may be engaged to facilitate user input to and/or initiate automatic population of a target advertisement template, which may direct the placement of AAA managed advertisements. In one implementation, an advertising target template may include fields to receive information regarding target audiences (e.g., demographic and/or customer characteristic groups) including, but not limited to, target geographic areas, age ranges and/or exact age values, gender, interests, advertisement placement target tags and/or categories, and/or the like. Target characteristics specified according to a template may instruct the AAA to direct advertisements to inventory targets having meta-data tags and/or otherwise associated with the specified target characteristics. In one implementation, a user clicking on an interest group via an AAA user interface may cause display of the target template and/or may facilitate user-input to and/or initiate automatic population of that template. For example, the AAA may be configured to identify and automatically select target template field values and/or generate field entries associated with a particular interest group selection.

AAA Controller

FIG. 19shows a block diagram illustrating embodiments of a AAA controller. In this embodiment, the AAA controller1901may serve to aggregate, process, store, search, serve, identify, instruct, generate, match, and/or facilitate interactions with a computer through market analysis technologies, and/or other related data.

In one embodiment, the AAA controller1901may be connected to and/or communicate with entities such as, but not limited to: one or more users from user input devices1911; peripheral devices1912; an optional cryptographic processor device1928; and/or a communications network1913.

The AAA controller1901may be based on computer systems that may comprise, but are not limited to, components such as: a computer systemization1902connected to memory1929.

A computer systemization1902may comprise a clock1930, central processing unit (“CPU(s)” and/or “processor(s)” (these terms are used interchangeable throughout the disclosure unless noted to the contrary))1903, a memory1929(e.g., a read only memory (ROM)1906, a random access memory (RAM)1905, etc.), and/or an interface bus1907, and most frequently, although not necessarily, are all interconnected and/or communicating through a system bus1904on one or more (mother)board(s)1902having conductive and/or otherwise transportive circuit pathways through which instructions (e.g., binary encoded signals) may travel to effectuate communications, operations, storage, etc. The computer systemization may be connected to a power source1986; e.g., optionally the power source may be internal. Optionally, a cryptographic processor1926and/or transceivers (e.g., ICs)1974may be connected to the system bus. In another embodiment, the cryptographic processor and/or transceivers may be connected as either internal and/or external peripheral devices1912via the interface bus I/O. In turn, the transceivers may be connected to antenna(s)1975, thereby effectuating wireless transmission and reception of various communication and/or sensor protocols; for example the antenna(s) may connect to: a Texas Instruments WiLink WL1283 transceiver chip (e.g., providing 802.11n, Bluetooth 3.0, FM, global positioning system (GPS) (thereby allowing AAA controller to determine its location)); Broadcom BCM4329FKUBG transceiver chip (e.g., providing 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, FM, etc.); a Broadcom BCM4750IUB8 receiver chip (e.g., GPS); an Infineon Technologies X-Gold 618-PMB9800 (e.g., providing 2G/3G HSDPA/HSUPA communications); and/or the like. The system clock typically has a crystal oscillator and generates a base signal through the computer systemization's circuit pathways. The clock is typically coupled to the system bus and various clock multipliers that will increase or decrease the base operating frequency for other components interconnected in the computer systemization. The clock and various components in a computer systemization drive signals embodying information throughout the system. Such transmission and reception of instructions embodying information throughout a computer systemization may be commonly referred to as communications. These communicative instructions may further be transmitted, received, and the cause of return and/or reply communications beyond the instant computer systemization to: communications networks, input devices, other computer systemizations, peripheral devices, and/or the like. It should be understood that in alternative embodiments, any of the above components may be connected directly to one another, connected to the CPU, and/or organized in numerous variations employed as exemplified by various computer systems.

The CPU comprises at least one high-speed data processor adequate to execute program components for executing user and/or system-generated requests. Often, the processors themselves will incorporate various specialized processing units, such as, but not limited to: integrated system (bus) controllers, memory management control units, floating point units, and even specialized processing sub-units like graphics processing units, digital signal processing units, and/or the like. Additionally, processors may include internal fast access addressable memory, and be capable of mapping and addressing memory1929beyond the processor itself; internal memory may include, but is not limited to: fast registers, various levels of cache memory (e.g., level 1, 2, 3, etc.), RAM, etc. The processor may access this memory through the use of a memory address space that is accessible via instruction address, which the processor can construct and decode allowing it to access a circuit path to a specific memory address space having a memory state. The CPU may be a microprocessor such as: AMD's Athlon, Duron and/or Opteron; ARM's application, embedded and secure processors; IBM and/or Motorola's DragonBall and PowerPC; IBM's and Sony's Cell processor, Intel's Celeron, Core (2) Duo, Itanium, Pentium, Xeon, and/or XScale; and/or the like processor(s). The CPU interacts with memory through instruction passing through conductive and/or transportive conduits (e.g., (printed) electronic and/or optic circuits) to execute stored instructions (i.e., program code) according to conventional data processing techniques. Such instruction passing facilitates communication within the AAA controller and beyond through various interfaces. Should processing requirements dictate a greater amount speed and/or capacity, distributed processors (e.g., Distributed AAA), mainframe, multi-core, parallel, and/or super-computer architectures may similarly be employed. Alternatively, should deployment requirements dictate greater portability, smaller Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) may be employed.

Depending on the particular implementation, features of the AAA may be achieved by implementing a microcontroller such as CAST's R8051XC2 microcontroller; Intel's MCS 51 (i.e., 8051 microcontroller); and/or the like. Also, to implement certain features of the AAA, some feature implementations may rely on embedded components, such as: Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (“ASIC”), Digital Signal Processing (“DSP”), Field Programmable Gate Array (“FPGA”), and/or the like embedded technology. For example, any of the AAA component collection (distributed or otherwise) and/or features may be implemented via the microprocessor and/or via embedded components; e.g., via ASIC, coprocessor, DSP, FPGA, and/or the like. Alternately, some implementations of the AAA may be implemented with embedded components that are configured and used to achieve a variety of features or signal processing.

Depending on the particular implementation, the embedded components may include software solutions, hardware solutions, and/or some combination of both hardware/software solutions. For example, AAA features discussed herein may be achieved through implementing FPGAs, which are a semiconductor devices containing programmable logic components called “logic blocks,” and programmable interconnects, such as the high performance FPGA Virtex series and/or the low cost Spartan series manufactured by Xilinx. Logic blocks and interconnects can be programmed by the customer or designer, after the FPGA is manufactured, to implement any of the AAA features. A hierarchy of programmable interconnects allow logic blocks to be interconnected as needed by the AAA system designer/administrator, somewhat like a one-chip programmable breadboard. An FPGA's logic blocks can be programmed to perform the operation of basic logic gates such as AND, and XOR, or more complex combinational operators such as decoders or mathematical operations. In most FPGAs, the logic blocks also include memory elements, which may be circuit flip-flops or more complete blocks of memory. In some circumstances, the AAA may be developed on regular FPGAs and then migrated into a fixed version that more resembles ASIC implementations. Alternate or coordinating implementations may migrate AAA controller features to a final ASIC instead of or in addition to FPGAs. Depending on the implementation all of the aforementioned embedded components and microprocessors may be considered the “CPU” and/or “processor” for the AAA.

Power Source

Interface Adapters

Interface bus(ses)1907may accept, connect, and/or communicate to a number of interface adapters, conventionally although not necessarily in the form of adapter cards, such as but not limited to: input output interfaces (I/O)1908, storage interfaces1909, network interfaces1910, and/or the like. Optionally, cryptographic processor interfaces1927similarly may be connected to the interface bus. The interface bus provides for the communications of interface adapters with one another as well as with other components of the computer systemization. Interface adapters are adapted for a compatible interface bus. Interface adapters conventionally connect to the interface bus via a slot architecture. Conventional slot architectures may be employed, such as, but not limited to: Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), Card Bus, (Extended) Industry Standard Architecture ((E)ISA), Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), NuBus, Peripheral Component Interconnect (Extended) (PCI(X)), PCI Express, Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA), and/or the like.

Network interfaces1910may accept, communicate, and/or connect to a communications network1913. Through a communications network1913, the AAA controller is accessible through remote clients1933b(e.g., computers with web browsers) by users1933a. Network interfaces may employ connection protocols such as, but not limited to: direct connect, Ethernet (thick, thin, twisted pair 10/100/1000 Base T, and/or the like), Token Ring, wireless connection such as IEEE 802.11a-x, and/or the like. Should processing requirements dictate a greater amount speed and/or capacity, distributed network controllers (e.g., Distributed AAA), architectures may similarly be employed to pool, load balance, and/or otherwise increase the communicative bandwidth required by the AAA controller. A communications network may be any one and/or the combination of the following: a direct interconnection; the Internet; a Local Area Network (LAN); a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN); an Operating Missions as Nodes on the Internet (OMNI); a secured custom connection; a Wide Area Network (WAN); a wireless network (e.g., employing protocols such as, but not limited to a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), I-mode, and/or the like); and/or the like. A network interface may be regarded as a specialized form of an input output interface. Further, multiple network interfaces1910may be used to engage with various communications network types1913. For example, multiple network interfaces may be employed to allow for the communication over broadcast, multicast, and/or unicast networks.

Peripheral devices1912may be connected and/or communicate to I/O and/or other facilities of the like such as network interfaces, storage interfaces, directly to the interface bus, system bus, the CPU, and/or the like. Peripheral devices may be external, internal and/or part of the AAA controller. Peripheral devices may include: antenna, audio devices (e.g., line-in, line-out, microphone input, speakers, etc.), cameras (e.g., still, video, webcam, etc.), dongles (e.g., for copy protection, ensuring secure transactions with a digital signature, and/or the like), external processors (for added capabilities; e.g., crypto devices528), force-feedback devices (e.g., vibrating motors), network interfaces, printers, scanners, storage devices, transceivers (e.g., cellular, GPS, etc.), video devices (e.g., goggles, monitors, etc.), video sources, visors, and/or the like. Peripheral devices often include types of input devices (e.g., cameras).

It should be noted that although user input devices and peripheral devices may be employed, the AAA controller may be embodied as an embedded, dedicated, and/or monitor-less (i.e., headless) device, wherein access would be provided over a network interface connection.

Cryptographic units such as, but not limited to, microcontrollers, processors1926, interfaces1927, and/or devices1928may be attached, and/or communicate with the AAA controller. A MC68HC16 microcontroller, manufactured by Motorola Inc., may be used for and/or within cryptographic units. The MC68HC16 microcontroller utilizes a 16-bit multiply-and-accumulate instruction in the 16 MHz configuration and requires less than one second to perform a 512-bit RSA private key operation. Cryptographic units support the authentication of communications from interacting agents, as well as allowing for anonymous transactions. Cryptographic units may also be configured as part of the CPU. Equivalent microcontrollers and/or processors may also be used. Other commercially available specialized cryptographic processors include: Broadcom's CryptoNetX and other Security Processors; nCipher's nShield; SafeNet's Luna PCI (e.g., 7100) series; Semaphore Communications' 40 MHz Roadrunner 184; Sun's Cryptographic Accelerators (e.g., Accelerator 6000 PCIe Board, Accelerator 500 Daughtercard); Via Nano Processor (e.g., L2100, L2200, U2400) line, which is capable of performing 500+MB/s of cryptographic instructions; VSI Technology's 33 MHz 6868; and/or the like.

Memory

Component Collection

The memory1929may contain a collection of program and/or database components and/or data such as, but not limited to: operating system component(s)1915(operating system); information server component(s)1916(information server); user interface component(s)1917(user interface); Web browser component(s)1918(Web browser); database(s)1919; mail server component(s)1921; mail client component(s)1922; cryptographic server component(s)1920(cryptographic server); the AAA component(s)1935; and/or the like (i.e., collectively a component collection). These components may be stored and accessed from the storage devices and/or from storage devices accessible through an interface bus. Although non-conventional program components such as those in the component collection, typically, are stored in a local storage device1914, they may also be loaded and/or stored in memory such as: peripheral devices, RAM, remote storage facilities through a communications network, ROM, various forms of memory, and/or the like.

Operating System

The operating system component1915is an executable program component facilitating the operation of the AAA controller. Typically, the operating system facilitates access of I/O, network interfaces, peripheral devices, storage devices, and/or the like. The operating system may be a highly fault tolerant, scalable, and secure system such as: Apple Macintosh OS X (Server); AT&T Plan 9; Be OS; Unix and Unix-like system distributions (such as AT&T's UNIX; Berkley Software Distribution (BSD) variations such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and/or the like; Linux distributions such as Red Hat, Ubuntu, and/or the like); and/or the like operating systems. However, more limited and/or less secure operating systems also may be employed such as Apple Macintosh OS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft DOS, Microsoft Windows 2000/2003/3.1/95/98/CE/Millenium/NT/Vista/XP (Server), Palm OS, and/or the like. An operating system may communicate to and/or with other components in a component collection, including itself, and/or the like. Most frequently, the operating system communicates with other program components, user interfaces, and/or the like. For example, the operating system may contain, communicate, generate, obtain, and/or provide program component, system, user, and/or data communications, requests, and/or responses. The operating system, once executed by the CPU, may enable the interaction with communications networks, data, I/O, peripheral devices, program components, memory, user input devices, and/or the like. The operating system may provide communications protocols that allow the AAA controller to communicate with other entities through a communications network1913. Various communication protocols may be used by the AAA controller as a subcarrier transport mechanism for interaction, such as, but not limited to: multicast, TCP/IP, UDP, unicast, and/or the like.

Information Server

User Interface

Computer interfaces in some respects are similar to automobile operation interfaces. Automobile operation interface elements such as steering wheels, gearshifts, and speedometers facilitate the access, operation, and display of automobile resources, and status. Computer interaction interface elements such as check boxes, cursors, menus, scrollers, and windows (collectively and commonly referred to as widgets) similarly facilitate the access, capabilities, operation, and display of data and computer hardware and operating system resources, and status. Operation interfaces are commonly called user interfaces. Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) such as the Apple Macintosh Operating System's Aqua, IBM's OS/2, Microsoft's Windows 2000/2003/3.1/95/98/CE/Millenium/NT/XP/Vista/7 (i.e., Aero), Unix's X-Windows (e.g., which may include additional Unix graphic interface libraries and layers such as K Desktop Environment (KDE), mythTV and GNU Network Object Model Environment (GNOME)), web interface libraries (e.g., ActiveX, AJAX, (D)HTML, FLASH, Java, JavaScript, etc. interface libraries such as, but not limited to, Dojo, jQuery (UI), MooTools, Prototype, script.aculo.us, SWFObject, Yahoo! User Interface, any of which may be used and) provide a baseline and means of accessing and displaying information graphically to users.

Web Browser

Mail Server

A mail server component1921is a stored program component that is executed by a CPU1903. The mail server may be a conventional Internet mail server such as, but not limited to sendmail, Microsoft Exchange, and/or the like. The mail server may allow for the execution of program components through facilities such as ASP, ActiveX, (ANSI) (Objective−) C (++), C# and/or .NET, CGI scripts, Java, JavaScript, PERL, PHP, pipes, Python, WebObjects, and/or the like. The mail server may support communications protocols such as, but not limited to: Internet message access protocol (IMAP), Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI)/Microsoft Exchange, post office protocol (POP3), simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), and/or the like. The mail server can route, forward, and process incoming and outgoing mail messages that have been sent, relayed and/or otherwise traversing through and/or to the AAA.

Access to the AAA mail may be achieved through a number of APIs offered by the individual Web server components and/or the operating system.

Mail Client

Cryptographic Server

The AAA Database

Alternatively, the AAA database may be implemented using various standard data-structures, such as an array, hash, (linked) list, struct, structured text file (e.g., XML), table, and/or the like. Such data-structures may be stored in memory and/or in (structured) files. In another alternative, an object-oriented database may be used, such as Frontier, ObjectStore, Poet, Zope, and/or the like. Object databases can include a number of object collections that are grouped and/or linked together by common attributes; they may be related to other object collections by some common attributes. Object-oriented databases perform similarly to relational databases with the exception that objects are not just pieces of data but may have other types of capabilities encapsulated within a given object. If the AAA database is implemented as a data-structure, the use of the AAA database1919may be integrated into another component such as the AAA component1935. Also, the database may be implemented as a mix of data structures, objects, and relational structures. Databases may be consolidated and/or distributed in countless variations through standard data processing techniques. Portions of databases, e.g., tables, may be exported and/or imported and thus decentralized and/or integrated.

In one embodiment, the AAA database may interact with other database systems. For example, employing a distributed database system, queries and data access by search AAA component may treat the combination of the AAA database, an integrated data security layer database as a single database entity.

In one embodiment, user programs may contain various user interface primitives, which may serve to update the AAA. Also, various accounts may require custom database tables depending upon the environments and the types of clients the AAA may need to serve. It should be noted that any unique fields may be designated as a key field throughout. In an alternative embodiment, these tables have been decentralized into their own databases and their respective database controllers (i.e., individual database controllers for each of the above tables). Employing standard data processing techniques, one may further distribute the databases over several computer systemizations and/or storage devices. Similarly, configurations of the decentralized database controllers may be varied by consolidating and/or distributing the various database components1919a-e. The AAA may be configured to keep track of various settings, inputs, and parameters via database controllers.

The AAA database may communicate to and/or with other components in a component collection, including itself, and/or facilities of the like. Most frequently, the AAA database communicates with the AAA component, other program components, and/or the like. The database may contain, retain, and provide information regarding other nodes and data.

The AAAs

The AAA component1935is a stored program component that is executed by a CPU. In one embodiment, the AAA component incorporates any and/or all combinations of the aspects of the AAA that was discussed in the previous figures. As such, the AAA affects accessing, obtaining and the provision of information, services, transactions, and/or the like across various communications networks. The features and embodiments of the AAA discussed herein increase network efficiency by reducing data transfer requirements the use of more efficient data structures and mechanisms for their transfer and storage. As a consequence, more data may be transferred in less time, and latencies with regard to transactions, are also reduced. In many cases, such reduction in storage, transfer time, bandwidth requirements, latencies, etc., will reduce the capacity and structural infrastructure requirements to support the AAA's features and facilities, and in many cases reduce the costs, energy consumption/requirements, and extend the life of AAA's underlying infrastructure; this has the added benefit of making the AAA more reliable. Similarly, many of the features and mechanisms are designed to be easier for users to use and access, thereby broadening the audience that may enjoy/employ and exploit the feature sets of the AAA; such ease of use also helps to increase the reliability of the AAA. In addition, the feature sets include heightened security as noted via the Cryptographic components1920,1926,1928and throughout, making access to the features and data more reliable and secure

The AAA component enabling access of information between nodes may be developed by employing standard development tools and languages such as, but not limited to: Apache components, Assembly, ActiveX, binary executables, (ANSI) (Objective−) C (++), C# and/or .NET, database adapters, CGI scripts, Java, JavaScript, mapping tools, procedural and object oriented development tools, PERL, PHP, Python, shell scripts, SQL commands, web application server extensions, web development environments and libraries (e.g., Microsoft's ActiveX; Adobe AIR, FLEX & FLASH; AJAX; (D)HTML; Dojo, Java; JavaScript; jQuery (UI); MooTools; Prototype; script.aculo.us; Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP); SWFObject; Yahoo! User Interface; and/or the like), WebObjects, and/or the like. In one embodiment, the AAA server employs a cryptographic server to encrypt and decrypt communications. The AAA component may communicate to and/or with other components in a component collection, including itself, and/or facilities of the like. Most frequently, the AAA component communicates with the AAA database, operating systems, other program components, and/or the like. The AAA may contain, communicate, generate, obtain, and/or provide program component, system, user, and/or data communications, requests, and/or responses.

Distributed AAAs

The structure and/or operation of any of the AAA node controller components may be combined, consolidated, and/or distributed in any number of ways to facilitate development and/or deployment. Similarly, the component collection may be combined in any number of ways to facilitate deployment and/or development. To accomplish this, one may integrate the components into a common code base or in a facility that can dynamically load the components on demand in an integrated fashion.

If component collection components are discrete, separate, and/or external to one another, then communicating, obtaining, and/or providing data with and/or to other component components may be accomplished through inter-application data processing communication techniques such as, but not limited to: Application Program Interfaces (API) information passage; (distributed) Component Object Model ((D)COM), (Distributed) Object Linking and Embedding ((D)OLE), and/or the like), Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Jini local and remote application program interfaces, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), Remote Method Invocation (RMI), SOAP, process pipes, shared files, and/or the like. Messages sent between discrete component components for inter-application communication or within memory spaces of a singular component for intra-application communication may be facilitated through the creation and parsing of a grammar. A grammar may be developed by using development tools such as lex, yacc, XML, and/or the like, which allow for grammar generation and parsing capabilities, which in turn may form the basis of communication messages within and between components.

For example, a grammar may be arranged to recognize the tokens of an HTTP post command, e.g.:w3c-post http:// . . . Value1

where Value1 is discerned as being a parameter because “http://” is part of the grammar syntax, and what follows is considered part of the post value. Similarly, with such a grammar, a variable “Value1” may be inserted into an “http://” post command and then sent. The grammar syntax itself may be presented as structured data that is interpreted and/or otherwise used to generate the parsing mechanism (e.g., a syntax description text file as processed by lex, yacc, etc.). Also, once the parsing mechanism is generated and/or instantiated, it itself may process and/or parse structured data such as, but not limited to: character (e.g., tab) delineated text, HTML, structured text streams, XML, and/or the like structured data. In another embodiment, inter-application data processing protocols themselves may have integrated and/or readily available parsers (e.g., JSON, SOAP, and/or like parsers) that may be employed to parse (e.g., communications) data. Further, the parsing grammar may be used beyond message parsing, but may also be used to parse: databases, data collections, data stores, structured data, and/or the like. Again, the desired configuration will depend upon the context, environment, and requirements of system deployment.

For example, in some implementations, the AAA controller may be executing a PHP script implementing a Secure Sockets Layer (“SSL”) socket server via the information server, which listens to incoming communications on a server port to which a client may send data, e.g., data encoded in JSON format Upon identifying an incoming communication, the PHP script may read the incoming message from the client device, parse the received JSON-encoded text data to extract information from the JSON-encoded text data into PHP script variables, and store the data (e.g., client identifying information, etc.) and/or extracted information in a relational database accessible using the Structured Query Language (“SQL”). An exemplary listing, written substantially in the form of PHP/SQL commands, to accept JSON-encoded input data from a client device via a SSL connection, parse the data to extract variables, and store the data to a database, is provided below:<?PHPheader(‘Content-Type: text/plain’);// set ip address and port to listen to for incoming data$address=‘192.168.0.100’;$port=255;// create a server-side SSL socket, listen for/accept incoming communication$sock=socket_create(AF_NET, SOCK_STREAM, o);socket_bind($sock, $address, $port) or die(‘Could not bind to address’);socket_listen($sock);$client=socket_accept($sock);// read input data from client device in 1024 byte blocks until end of message do{$input=“ ”;$input=socket_read($client, 1024);$data.=$input;} while($input !=“ ”);// parse data to extract variables$obj=json_decode($data, true);//store input data in a databasemysql_connect(“201.408.185.132”,$DBserver, $password); // access database servermysql_select(“CLIENT_DB.SQL”); // select database to appendmysql_query(“INSERT INTO UserTable (transmission)VALUES ($data)); // add data to UserTable table in a CLIENT databasemysql_close(“CLIENT_DB.SQL”); // close connection to database?>

Also, the following resources may be used to provide example embodiments regarding SOAP parser implementation:http://www.xav.com/perl/site/lib/SOAP/Parser.htmlhttp://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v2r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.IBMDI.doc/referenceguide295.htm
and other parser implementations:http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v2r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.IBMDI.doc/referenceguide259.htm
all of which are hereby expressly incorporated by reference.

In order to address various issues and advance the art, the entirety of this application for AUTOMATED ADVERTISING AGENCY APPARATUSES, METHODS AND SYSTEMS (including the Cover Page, Title, Headings, Field, Background, Summary, Brief Description of the Drawings, Detailed Description, Claims, Abstract, Figures, Appendices, and otherwise) shows, by way of illustration, various embodiments in which the claimed innovations may be practiced. The advantages and features of the application are of a representative sample of embodiments only, and are not exhaustive and/or exclusive. They are presented only to assist in understanding and teach the claimed principles. It should be understood that they are not representative of all claimed innovations. As such, certain aspects of the disclosure have not been discussed herein. That alternate embodiments may not have been presented for a specific portion of the innovations or that further undescribed alternate embodiments may be available for a portion is not to be considered a disclaimer of those alternate embodiments. It will be appreciated that many of those undescribed embodiments incorporate the same principles of the innovations and others are equivalent. Thus, it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and functional, logical, operational, organizational, structural and/or topological modifications may be made without departing from the scope and/or spirit of the disclosure. As such, all examples and/or embodiments are deemed to be non-limiting throughout this disclosure. Also, no inference should be drawn regarding those embodiments discussed herein relative to those not discussed herein other than it is as such for purposes of reducing space and repetition. For instance, it is to be understood that the logical and/or topological structure of any combination of any program components (a component collection), other components and/or any present feature sets as described in the figures and/or throughout are not limited to a fixed operating order and/or arrangement, but rather, any disclosed order is exemplary and all equivalents, regardless of order, are contemplated by the disclosure. Furthermore, it is to be understood that such features are not limited to serial execution, but rather, any number of threads, processes, services, servers, and/or the like that may execute asynchronously, concurrently, in parallel, simultaneously, synchronously, and/or the like are contemplated by the disclosure. As such, some of these features may be mutually contradictory, in that they cannot be simultaneously present in a single embodiment. Similarly, some features are applicable to one aspect of the innovations, and inapplicable to others. In addition, the disclosure includes other innovations not presently claimed. Applicant reserves all rights in those presently unclaimed innovations including the right to claim such innovations, file additional applications, continuations, continuations in part, divisions, and/or the like thereof. As such, it should be understood that advantages, embodiments, examples, functional, features, logical, operational, organizational, structural, topological, and/or other aspects of the disclosure are not to be considered limitations on the disclosure as defined by the claims or limitations on equivalents to the claims. It is to be understood that, depending on the particular needs and/or characteristics of a AAA individual and/or enterprise user, database configuration and/or relational model, data type, data transmission and/or network framework, syntax structure, and/or the like, various embodiments of the AAA, may be implemented that enable a great deal of flexibility and customization. For example, aspects of the AAA may be adapted for providing interactive user interface reflecting market analyses and strategic planning; leveraging real-time or near-real time updating of social media data to automatically direct advertising purchasing, configuration and placement; retrieving numerical and/or non-numerical data, trends, relationships, and/or the like from a corpus of structured and/or unstructured electronic documents; identifying similarities and/or differences for selected characteristics related to query terms; pattern-based searching and/or query refinement based on graphical interface selections; open-ended and/or endpoint-constrained traversal-mode searching; highlighting and/or suppressing outliers and/or deviations from trends, averages, means, external data, and/or the like; alerts and/or associated actions based on occurrence of data points, trends, patterns, and/or the like; discrimination of relationships, trends, patterns, and/or the like; quantitative sentiment analysis; anonymization; automated optimization and/or refinement of search results based on result trends and/or patterns; and/or the like.