METHOD FOR BROKERING INTERNET ADVERTISEMENTS ON THE INTERNET AND HOST THEREFOR

Abstract: An internet advertisement brokering host for brokering a plurality of internet advertisements between an advertiser and an individual website operator via the internet is provided. The host includes a database for storing each internet advertisement identifier, each website operator identifier corresponding to each internet advertisement, and data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement. The host provides a web page for publishing internet advertisements and corresponding advertisement guide information so that an advertiser is allowed to load his or her advertisements and a website operator is allowed to take any internet advertisement onto his or her website. A website operator or a publisher can receive an advertisement income with respect to data on the effectiveness of all internet advertisements which have been displayed on his or her website irrespective of advertisers. Also, advertisers can pay charges for advertising services irrespective of publishers taking and loading advertisements onto their websites. A publisher who has a small number of visitors is allowed to load an advertisement or advertisements without receiving the approval of an advertiser. As a result, small-scale advertisement is encouraged. In addition, since an advertisement fee can be calculated in an advertisement brokering host, a number of advertisers and publishers can engage in advertising activity at their desire.

Description: METHOD FOR BROKERING INTERNET ADVERTISEMENTS ON THE INTERNET AND HOST THEREFOR Technical Field The present invention relates to advertising on the internet, and more particularly, to a method for brokering internet advertisements over the internet and a host therefor. Background Art Although the internet advertising market is rapidly growing, there is no efficient advertisement brokering system between an advertiser who pays advertising fees to have his or her advertisement displayed on a publisher's site and a publisher who is a website operator or master and allows advertisements to be displayed on his or her website for a price. At present, most internet advertisements are brokered through advertisement brokers between advertisers and publishers. Consequently, most advertisements do not have a high brokering success rate. There are not enough advertisement brokers to broker between several million websites and a number of advertisers who wish to advertise their products and/or services. Also, if a small-scale website operator runs a website of which the expected revenue from advertisements is U.S. $100.00 or so monthly, it is apparent that neither brokers nor advertisers would be interested in advertising on that website. Meanwhile, most current websites are small-scale websites. Thus, if small-scale website operators are provided with an opportunity to induce advertising, this will help both small-scale internet website operators and small-scale advertisers to develop their businesses. Disclosure of the Invention Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for brokering internet advertisements over the internet. It is another object of the present invention to provide a host for brokering internet advertisements over the internet. To accomplish the above objects of the present invention, there is provided a method for brokering at least one internet advertisement between at least one advertiser and at least one website operator, the internet advertisement brokering method comprising the steps of: (a) providing an advertisement brokering host for allowing the advertiser or a host operator to publish at least one internet advertisement therein and allowing a website operator to take any internet advertisement onto his or her website; (b) a website operator publishing at least one internet advertisement his or her website at his or her own will; and (c) storing data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement which results from selection of the internet advertisement published on the website of the website operator. Preferably, step (a) provides an advertisement brokering host which presents at least one internet advertisement together with advertisement guide information corresponding to the internet advertisement. Preferably, step (b) supplies the selected advertisement to said website operator's internet browser in code fashion, if said website operator selects at least one of the advertisements displayed in said advertisement brokering host. Preferably, the step (c) stores an ID of a user viewing an internet advertisement in a cookie fashion in a database in order to determine if the same banner advertisement or a banner advertisement in the same site is clicked more than a predetermined number of times by the same user, to therefore prevent payment of an advertisement fee accumulated due to illegal repetitive clicking of the internet advertisement. There is also provided an internet advertisement brokering host for brokering at least one internet advertisement between at least one advertiser and at least one website operator, the internet advertisement brokering host comprising: a database for storing each internet advertisement, website operator identifiers corresponding to each internet advertisement, and data on the effectiveness of each internet advertisement, wherein the advertisement brokering host provides a web page for publishing at least one internet advertisement and allowing a website operator to take any internet advertisement onto his or her website, and stores data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement obtained from selection of the internet advertisement published on the website of the website operator in the database. Preferably, in the case of a plurality of internet advertisements, each internet advertisement, and data on the effectiveness of each internet advertisement is identified using a website operator identifier and an internet advertisement number. Preferably, the advertisement brokering host is provided in a manner so that each internet advertisement together with a corresponding website operator identifier and a corresponding advertisement number can be taken. Preferably, the operator's identifier, that is, the publisher's identifier is designated by the advertisement brokering host. Also, the publisher's domain address or IP address may be used as the operator's identifier. Preferably, the advertisement brokering host provides a web page presenting at least one internet advertisement together with corresponding advertisement guide information. Preferably, the advertisement brokering host can search through advertisement guide information via at least one web page. Preferably, the data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement is stored in the advertisement brokering host. Preferably, the selected advertisement is supplied to said website operator's internet browser in code fashion, if said website operator selects at least one of the advertisements displayed in said advertisement brokering host. Preferably, the internet advertisement brokering host of claim 18, wherein said code is the hyper text markup language (HTML) code. Preferably, an ID of a user viewing an internet advertisement is stored in a cookie fashion in a database, and if the same banner advertisement is clicked and exposed more than a predetermined number of times by the same user, no advertisement fee is paid corresponding to the multiple selections. Brief Description of the Drawings FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing an internet-based advertisement brokering system; and FIG. 2 shows a web page screen which the brokering host of FIG. 1 provides for website operators in order that they may see advertisements and/or take one or more advertisements onto their websites. Best mode for carrying out the Invention A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. For clarity of description, it is assumed that website operators and publishers are people who load advertisements onto their websites using an advertisement brokering host provided in the present invention. Thus, for simplicity, the website operator and the publisher are both referred to as the publisher. FIG. 1 is a block diagram schematically showing an internet-based advertisement brokering system. In FIG. 1 , reference numerals 10.*~10 M denote advertisers' computers, 20 denotes the internet communications network, 30 denotes an advertisement brokering host, 32 denotes a database constructed in the advertisement brokering host, and 40**~40 N denote publishers' computers. The advertisement brokering host 30 brokers internet advertisements between the advertisers' computers 10**~10 M and the publishers' computers 40*,~40 N . The advertisement brokering host 30 allows an advertiser to load one or more advertisements onto a web page of the host 30 via the internet 20. A publisher downloads an advertisement loaded on the website or web page of the host 30 via the internet 20 and publishes the same on his or her website for advertising. The advertisement brokering host 30 can receive one or more advertisements from advertisers via other communications units. In other words, to transfer internet advertisement related information between the advertisement brokering host 30 and the publishers' computers 40.,~40 N via the internet is essential in enabling the host 30 according to the present invention to broker internet advertisements between the advertisers' computer 10.*~10 N and the publishers' computers 40 1 ~40 N . In this embodiment, the database 32 in the advertisement brokering host 32 includes tables (or sub-databases) for storing information related to an advertisement brokering service, that is, advertiser related information, publisher related information, advertisement related information, and information related to the effectiveness of an advertisement. The advertiser related information may include the advertiser's company, name, contact point, e-mail address, identifier, and information for paying advertisement fees. The advertiser related information further includes advertisement total cost information. The publisher related information may include the publisher's company, name, contact point and e-mail address, identifier, bank account number and information for charging advertisement fees. The advertisement fee may be separately calculated in some cases. The advertisement related information includes the advertisement itself or a uniform resource locator (URL) of the advertisement, a target URL of the advertisement, advertisement guide information, advertisement number, and the advertiser's identifier. Here, the advertisement target URL is related to a corresponding advertisement on an internet website such as an electronic shopping mall run by the advertiser. The advertisement effect related information includes advertisement number, publisher's identifier and the number of times the advertisement has been clicked and/or exposed. The advertisement can be video, audio, or text which includes an image banner, alone or in combination. The advertisement guide information includes advertisement conditions such as the price of placing an advertisement, advertising duration and advertising region, and class and description of the advertisement, and ALT (Alternative Text). The ALT is an attribute of an IMG (IMAGE) tag which is used for inserting an image into a HTML (HyperText Markup Language) document, for designating text to be shown in place of an image. The number of times an advertisement has been clicked on and exposed is measured for calculating advertising fees. This measurement can include the number of times an advertisement has been clicked on using a mouse. The advertiser's identifier and advertisement number are designated automatically or by a host operator in the advertisement brokering host 30. The publisher's identifier is designated by the advertisement brokering host 30. Otherwise, a domain address or IP address of a publisher, including a next-generation IP address called IPng or IPv6 can be used as a publisher's identifier. The advertisement brokering host 30 provides an interface (not shown) for advertisers. The interface allows advertisers to load an advertisement or advertisements onto the advertisement brokering host 30 via the internet, and can be implemented as one or more web pages which are linked with the database 32. In this case, the advertiser related information loaded onto the web page is recorded in a corresponding region of tables or sub-databases constituting the database 32 immediately. Preferably, the advertisement brokering host 30 is implemented so that an advertiser can load a number of advertisements onto the advertisement brokering host 30 at the same time. In this case, it is preferable that the interface is implemented so that an advertiser can load advertising content and advertisement guide information onto the advertisement brokering host 30 all at one time. The advertisement brokering host 30 provides publishers connected to their own websites with advertisements to be selected by the publishers via web pages. The publisher advertisements include advertisements and advertisement guide information, among advertisement related information. In the case that a publisher selects any one publisher advertisement via an advertisement banner or an advertisement select button, the advertisement brokering host 30 provides a publisher's computer with a HTML code for allowing a publisher to load the advertisement onto his or her web page. The HTML code includes an advertisement number, a publisher's identifier, and a target URL. The HTML code may include texts for an image URL or an image file of the advertisement. The HTML code further includes sentences for ALT. A method for automatically transcribing a HTML code corresponding to a selected advertisement into the form of a file or an e- mail, or a method for guiding a method of taking a HTML code if an advertisement is selected, and thus allowing a publisher to take the HTML code can be used in order to provide the HTML code to the publisher's computer. The database 32 and the web pages can be designed so that the advertisement brokering host 30 provides all selected advertisements to a publisher via a separate procedure, after a publisher has selected desired advertisements, which allows the publisher to take a number of advertisements at the same time. In the advertisement brokering host 30, web pages for publishers are constructed according to a directory method, in order to allow a publisher to efficiently gain access to advertisements related to one another. An example of the web page is shown in FIG. 2. A web page screen shown in FIG. 2 shows two publisher advertisements 110 and 120 having advertisements and advertisement guide information. A directory path 101 of AD FIND HOME>CAMPAIGN>GIFT>MEMBER SUBSCRIPTION means that the advertisements of FIG. 2 are campaign advertisements belonging to a class determined by the directory path. A search button 103 allows a publisher to search through the whole directory or directory path 101 as in a directory search engine such as YAHOO. The advertisement brokering host 30 can provide a search function widely in the description, valid date, or price of an advertisement, ALT contents as well as in the title (not shown), directory. Since realization of the search function provided in the advertisement brokering host 30 is apparent to a person who has ordinary skill in the art, a detailed description thereof will be omitted. Reference numerals 111 and 121 are advertisement images of publisher advertisements 110 and 120, that is, advertisement banners. Reference numerals 113 and 123 are advertisement guide information. Reference numerals 115 and 125 are advertisement select buttons for selecting corresponding advertisements 110 and 120. In the advertisement guide information shown in FIG. 2, the advertisement fee per visit denotes the advertisement unit price, and the event term denotes the advertising duration. The ALT is text which is shown by a browser when a mouse is put over the advertisement banner 111 , in order to show advertising text for a user who gains access to the publisher's computers 40**~40 N . Each advertisement can have a title and other information although not shown in FIG. 2. In the case that a publisher visits the website of the advertisement brokering host 30 using a web browser of his or her computer 40*,~40 N , the advertisement brokering host 30 provides the publisher advertisements shown in FIG. 2 to the publisher browser. Thus, since the publishers can select a corresponding advertisement after they have reviewed a banner's adaptability as well as advertisement price based on the advertisement guide information, they can be free from unilateral advertisement allocation by an agent/advertiser, which can occur frequently at banner exchange sites. An example of a HTML code with which the advertisement brokering host 30 provides an advertisement to the browser of the publisher is as follows, in the case that the advertisement banner 111 of the advertisement shown in FIG. 2 has been selected: <A HERF=http:adfind.co.kr/click.asp?banner="advertisement number "&referee = " publisher's identifier "><IMG SRC = http://adfind.co.kr/show.asp?banner="advertisement number"&referee="publisher's identifier" BORDER=0 alt="Take one billion"></A> In the above HTML code, a program, http: adfi nd. co. kr/s how. asp? banner = " advertisement number"&referee="publisher's identifier" is to allow a banner image source to be taken to a publisher's computer. The advertisement brokering host 30 records the advertisement selection in the database 32, and then sends an image to the publisher. Therefore, only if a publisher downloads a HTML code supplied from the advertisement brokering host 30 to his or her computer properly, an internet advertisement can be displayed. As soon as an advertisement is exposed via the browser of a user who visits a publisher's website containing an internet advertisement, the user's browser computer transfers the advertisement number of the selected advertisement and the publisher's identifier to the advertisement brokering host 30. The advertisement brokering host 30 updates data on the effectiveness of the internet advertisement according to the amount of exposure of the advertisement, in the database 32. If a user who visits the publisher's website selects one of the advertisements through clicking a mouse button on his or her web browser, the advertisement number of the selected advertisement and the publisher's identifier are transferred to the advertisement brokering host 30, and the host 30 connects the user's browser with a target URL of the selected advertisement. The advertisement brokering host 30 which receives the information updates the data on the effectiveness of the internet advertisement corresponding to the advertisement number and the publisher's identifier, transmitted from the publisher's computer, in the database 32. For example, in the case that an advertisement banner of the advertisement having the HTML code of the above-described example is selected or clicked, a "banner" and a "referee", which are parameters, allow the respective advertisement number and the publisher's identifier to be transmitted to the advertisement brokering host 30, and corresponding data on the effectiveness of the internet advertisement recorded in the database 32 to be updated. Then, the advertisement brokering host 30 updates information corresponding to the updated data on the effectiveness of the internet advertisement and information for the advertisement fee calculation in the database 32. The data on the effectiveness of the internet advertisement is simply a banner exposure count, or results from counting the number of times that the advertisement banner has been selected via a mouse click. In the latter case, since advertisement content can be made of various pages exceeding a single screen, data on the effectiveness of the advertisement can be calculated including the number of the advertisement pages shown together with the number of times the advertisement was selected. Also, the data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement can be calculated in various forms such as separate contracts or electronic commerce according to the click and the number of pages occurring due to the click. In this case, an advertisement fee can be calculated as a predetermined percentage of a transaction amount. As described above, the advertisement fee has been calculated with respect to the exposure of the advertisement and the number of times the advertisement was selected. However, the advertisement fee can be deposited as a predetermined percentage of a commercial transaction amount. For example, if a transaction is performed in a commercial website via a publisher's website, the advertisement fee can be calculated according to a total transaction amount. Here, it is preferable that the total transaction amount be calculated only on the advertiser's site. Also, the advertisement brokering host 30 can include a system for preventing data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement from accumulating due to the illegal actions of a user. The system judges whether the advertisement is selected continuously on purpose, to thereby collect data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement. For example, the IP address of a computer whose user clicks on a banner advertisement is regularly checked allowing the system to easily determine if the same user has repeatedly selected the same banner advertisement. A preferred embodiment of the present invention stores an ID in a cookie fashion in a database and if the same banner advertisement is clicked and exposed more than a predetermined number of times from the same computer, no advertisement fee is paid corresponding to the multiple selections. However, in the case that a user gains access to the internet using a mobile phone or telephone, the IP address varies every time the user gains access to the internet. To prevent advertisement fee from accumulating due to the same banner advertisement being repeatedly clicked by a user gaining access to the internet from a mobile phone or telephone, an embodiment of the present invention includes a general repetitive click check system for preventing payment of an advertisement fee if a user clicks the same banner advertisement via a certain site. In this embodiment, considering that a user rarely clicks the same banner advertisement more than twice, even through different sites, the advertisement fee is not paid when the same user continuously clicks the same banner advertisement, even through different sites. Accordingly, the advertisement fee calculation database is very simple. Also, since the same person in the same site rarely clicks an advertisement more than a predetermined number of times, in the case that a user does click the advertisement or other advertisements more than the predetermined number of times,, no advertisement fee is paid corresponding to the multiple selections, to thereby prevent improper accumulation of data. In addition, since the number of exposure times and the number of click times are stored together in this embodiment, a number of click times of more than a predetermined ratio with respect to the number of exposure times is regarded as improper clicks so that a corresponding advertisement fee is not paid. It is preferable that the advertisement brokering host 30 provides publisher's advertisement fee information for calculating an advertisement fee with respect to each advertisement, via a web page which can be accessed by advertisers. In this case, advertisers can determine an advertisement unit price or advertising duration while checking an advertisement expenditure. Also, advertisers may reject undesired publishers. Further, it is preferable that the advertisement brokering host 30 provides the advertisement fee information of advertisements for publishers. In this case, the publishers can alter the advertisement to be loaded on their sites according to the advertisement fee, immediately. The present invention has been described above with reference to advertisers whose advertisements are loaded onto web sites, and who pay an advertising fee in return. However, it is apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that an agent in place of an advertiser can load an advertisement or advertisements onto an advertisement brokering host and pay charges based on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement, which is also within the scope of the present invention. Industrial Applicability As described above, in the case of the advertisement brokering host of the present invention, a publisher can receive an advertisement income with respect to the effectiveness of all internet advertisement displayed on his or her website irrespective of advertisers. Also, advertisers can pay charges for advertisement services irrespective of publishers taking and loading advertisements onto their websites. In particular, the present invention allows a publisher who has a small number of visitors to load an advertisement or advertisements without receiving the approval of an advertiser. As a result, the present invention encourages small-scale advertisement. In addition, since an advertisement fee can be calculated by an advertisement brokering host, a number of advertisers and publishers can engage in advertisement activity at their desire.

Claims: What is claimed is: 1. A method for brokering at least one internet advertisement between at least one advertiser and at least one website operator, the internet advertisement brokering method comprising the steps of: (a) providing an advertisement brokering host for allowing the advertiser or a host operator to publish at least one internet advertisement therein and allowing a website operator to take any internet advertisement onto his or her website; (b) a website operator publishing at least one internet advertisement on his or her website at his or her own will; and (c) storing data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement which results from selection of the internet advertisement published on the website of the website operator. 2. The internet advertisement brokering method of claim 1 , wherein each collection of data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement is correlated to the website posting the advertisement and the advertiser, using a website operator's identifier and an advertisement number. 3. The internet advertisement brokering method of claim 2, wherein said website operator's identifier is designated by said advertisement brokering host, or assigned by use of a domain address or IP address of said website operator's identifier. 4. The internet advertisement brokering method of claim 1 , wherein said step (a) provides an advertisement brokering host which presents at least one internet advertisement together with advertisement guide information corresponding to the internet advertisement. 5. The internet advertisement brokering method of claim 2, wherein said step (a) provides an advertisement brokering host which presents at least one internet advertisement together with advertisement guide information corresponding to the internet advertisement. 6. The internet advertisement brokering method of claim 1 , wherein the data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement can be stored in the advertisement brokering host or the website operator's computer. 7. The internet advertisement brokering method of claim 2, wherein the data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement is stored in the advertisement brokering host. 8. The internet advertisement brokering method of claim 1 , wherein said step (b) supplies the selected advertisement to a browser of said website operator's in code fashion, if said website operator selects at least one of the advertisements displayed in said advertisement brokering host. 9. The internet advertisement brokering method of claim 8, wherein said code is the hyper text markup language (HTML) code. 10. The internet advertisement brokering method of claim 1 , wherein said step (c) stores an ID of a user viewing an internet advertisement in a cookie fashion in a database in order to determine if the same banner advertisement has been clicked improperly by the same user, and therefore to prevent payment of an advertisement fee due to illegal repetitive clicking of the internet advertisement. 11. An internet advertisement brokering host for brokering at least one internet advertisement between at least one advertiser and at least one website operator, the internet advertisement brokering host comprising: a database for storing each internet advertisement, a website operator identifier corresponding to each internet advertisement, and data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement, wherein the advertisement brokering host provides a web page for publishing at least one internet advertisement and allowing a website operator to take any internet advertisement onto his or her website, and 5 stores data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement obtained from selection of the internet advertisement published on the website of the website operator in the database. 12. The internet advertisement brokering host of claim 11 , wherein said advertisement brokering host is provided in a manner such that each o internet advertisement can be taken together with a corresponding website operator identifier and a corresponding advertisement number 13. The internet advertisement brokering host of claim 12, wherein said website operator's identifier is designated by said advertisement brokering host, or assigned by use of a domain address or IP address of 5 said website operator's identifier. 14. The internet advertisement brokering host of claim 10, wherein said advertisement brokering host provides a web page presenting at least one internet advertisement together with corresponding advertisement guide information. o 15. The internet advertisement brokering host of claim 11 , wherein said advertisement brokering host provides a web page presenting at least one internet advertisement together with corresponding advertisement guide information. 16. The internet advertisement brokering host of claim 11 , wherein 5 said advertisement brokering host can search through advertisement guide information via at least one web page. 17. The internet advertisement brokering host of claim 11 , wherein the data on the effectiveness of an internet advertisement is stored in the advertisement brokering host. 18. The internet advertisement brokering host of claim 11 , wherein said selected advertisement is supplied to a browser of said website operator's in code fashion, if said website operator selects at least one of the advertisements displayed in said advertisement brokering host. 19. The internet advertisement brokering host of claim 18, wherein said code is the hyper text markup language (HTML) code. 20. The internet advertisement brokering host of claim 11 , wherein an ID of a user viewing an internet advertisement is stored in a cookie fashion in a database, and if the same banner advertisement is clicked and exposed more than a predetermined number of times by the same user, the advertisement fee corresponding to the multiple selections is not paid.

Inventors: YOO CHIN-WOO, YOO, CHIN-WOO
Applicants: LINK PLUS INC, YOO CHIN WOO, LINK PLUS, INC., YOO, CHIN-WOO
Application year: 2000
Main classification: G06F17
IPC codes: G06Q10, G06Q30, G09F19