Patent Publication Number: US-2010131362-A1

Title: Advertising apparatus and methods and storage medium

Description:
This Application claims priority of Taiwan Patent Application No. 97145900, filed on Nov. 27, 2008, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The invention relates generally to an advertising apparatus and method, and more particularly, to an advertising apparatus and method applied to social networking platforms. 
     2. Description of the Related Art 
     With increased internet access, advertising via the internet has grown in popularity. Additionally, internet social networks have also grown in popularity. Accordingly, advertising through users of internet social networks are growing in popularity. Conventionally, methods for adverting via the internet social networks include buying a space on a web page (such as side area on the web page) of a website, and providing advertisements thereon. However, flexibility for choosing and changing advertisements is often less than desired. Also, normally, the web areas for advertisements are placed on non-obvious areas of a web page, so the advertising visibility and benefit are decreased. 
     BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The invention discloses an advertising apparatus for generating a link corresponding to an advertisement, comprising a member module and an advertisement generation module. The member module generates a first public member ID for an advertiser account, wherein the advertiser account is logged onto a social networking platform on a first electronic device. The advertisement generation module generates the link comprising the first public member ID, and transmits the link to the first electronic device through the internet. The link is displayed on an editable space provided by the advertiser account. 
     The invention further discloses an advertising method for generating a link corresponding to an advertisement. The method comprises generating a first public member ID for an advertiser account, wherein the advertiser account is logged onto a social networking platform on a first electronic device. The method further comprises generating the link comprising the first public member ID, and transmitting the link to the first electronic device through the internet. The link is displayed on an editable space provided by the advertiser account. 
     The invention further discloses a storage medium for storing an advertising program, wherein the advertising program comprises a plurality of program codes to be loaded onto a computer system so that an advertising method generating a link corresponding to an advertisement is executed by the computer system. The method comprises generating a first public member ID for an advertiser account, wherein the advertiser account is logged onto a social networking platform on a first electronic device. The method further comprises generating the link comprising the first public member ID, and transmitting the link to the first electronic device through the internet. Wherein, the link is displayed on an editable space provided by the advertiser account. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The invention can be more fully understood by reading the subsequent detailed description and examples with references made to the accompanying drawings, wherein: 
         FIG. 1  shows a block diagram of an advertising system according to an embodiment of the invention; 
         FIG. 2  shows an operation flowchart of the advertising system according to an embodiment of the invention; 
         FIG. 3  shows a diagram of an advertiser posting a link on his/her MSN platform nickname area according to an embodiment of the invention; 
         FIG. 4  shows a diagram of the relationship among advertisers in a multi-level marketing structure according to an embodiment of the invention; 
         FIG. 5A  shows a graphic interface provided for the advertisers to select the different types of advertisement required, according to an embodiment of the invention; and 
         FIG. 5B  shows a matching mechanism between the advertisement client settings and the advertiser settings according to an embodiment of the invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     The following description is of the best-contemplated mode of carrying out the invention. This description is made for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the invention and should not be taken in a limiting sense. The scope of the invention is best determined by reference to the appended claims. 
       FIG. 1  shows a block diagram of an advertising system according to an embodiment of the invention. The advertising system  10  comprises an advertising apparatus  100  and a client computer  200 . The advertising apparatus  100  comprises an advertisement solicitation module  110 , a member module  120 , a matching module  130 , an advertisement generation module  140 , an advertisement web address generation module  150  and a bonus calculation module  160 . The advertisement generation module  140  further comprises a monitoring module  141 . The client computer  200  is installed with a social networking platform, such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger or Skype (non-limiting). An account is provided for a user to log onto the social networking platform, and the social networking platform provides a personal status or nickname area for the account of the user. In an embodiment of the invention, a user is able to use his/her account to log onto the social networking platform installed on the client computer  200  and to be an advertiser. Following, an operation flowchart of the advertising system  10  will be described in detail. 
       FIG. 2  shows an operation flowchart of the advertising system according to an embodiment of the invention. First, the advertisement solicitation module  110  of the advertising apparatus  100  solicits the advertisement clients (or advertisement suppliers) who have a lot of advertisements to be advertised (step S 20 ). The advertisement client may be a sport franchise who has some sort of advertisements for promoting their game tickets, or a restaurant who has the advertisements to be advertised for promoting their new cuisine. Once potential advertisement clients have been identified, the advertising apparatus  100  processes registration of the potential advertisement clients. Registration information may include information such as the category of advertisements that require advertising (sport, food, etc), as well as the quantity, advertising words and the corresponding web addresses of the advertisements. After the registration of the advertisement clients, the advertisement solicitation module  110  recruits the potential advertisers who will participate or perform the advertising for the advertisement clients. In addition, each advertisement client may be assigned with an set of advertisement client settings designating what type of advertisers to perform the advertising for them (step S 20 ). For participating the advertising, the advertisers are required to have a computer (such as the client computer  200 ) installed with the related social networking platform, as well as an account used to log onto the social networking platform for advertising purposes, also called “advertiser account”. When an advertiser desires participation in advertising, the advertising apparatus  100  is utilized to register submission of an advertiser account, wherein a unique first public member ID and a unique first private member ID is established for the advertiser account (step S 21 ). Note that the MSN platform is used as a non-limiting example of a social networking platform in the preferred embodiment. Concurrently, the advertiser may also be assigned with the advertiser settings which designate what type of advertisement is preferred for advertising (step S 21 ). Next, the matching module  130  performs a matching procedure between the advertisement client settings and the advertiser settings in order to select suitable advertisements for the advertiser (step S 22 ). In addition, the amount of bonus or money to the advertisers is also calculated based on the matching result and effectiveness of the advertisements. 
     When an advertisement is selected to be advertised by an advertiser, the advertisement generation module  140  generates a link of the advertisement based on a first public member ID of the advertiser (or the advertiser account, specifically), and transmits the link to the client computer  200  through the internet for further advertising (step S 23 ). Once the advertiser is logged onto the MSN platform with his/her advertiser account on the client computer  200 , the advertiser posts the received link on the editable personal status or nickname area provided by the advertiser account (step S 24 ), making the link public to all friends in the advertiser MSN contacts list. For example, if the advertisement is an I-Phone advertisement, and the first public member ID of the advertiser account is “77Cvs”, then the advertisement generation module  140  will generate a link such as “50% off for I-Phone www.ipromote.com?uid=77Cvs”. The link comprises the advertising words “50% off for I-Phone” which shows the discount information, as well as the first public member ID of the advertiser account “77Cvs”. Next, the advertisement generation module  140  transmits the link to the client computer  200  (advertiser) through the internet. Upon reception of the link “50% off for I-Phone www.ipromote.com?uid=77Cvs”, the advertiser can post the link on his/her MSN nickname area, as shown in  FIG. 3 . 
     Next, assume that the advertiser account has contact A in his/her MSN contacts list, and contact A is also logged onto the MSN platform on another computer. When the advertiser posts the received link on his/her MSN nickname area, contact A will notice that the advertiser account nickname area has been replaced with the link. Then contact A, if interested, may copy the whole link other than the advertising words (www.ipromote.com?uid=77Cvs) to his/her website browser (step S 25 ) in order to open the link (note that for some social networking platforms such as Skype, the link can be directly opened by simply clicking on the link without copying it to the website browser). Once the link is opened, a link-clicking signal is issued from contact A computer to the advertisement web address generation module  150  and recorded in the advertisement web address generation module  150 . Then, the advertisement web address generation module  150  identifies the advertiser posting the advertisement, in order to calculate the bonus for that advertiser. Identifying the first public member ID from the link, which is “77Cvs” in this embodiment, may be one method of establishing the advertiser. Based on the identified advertiser, the bonus calculation module  160  calculates the bonus for the advertiser (for the advertiser account). In addition, the advertisement web address generation module  150 , according to the identified first public member ID “77Cvs”, is also able to identify what type of advertisements are going to be advertised by the advertiser (because each advertiser was assigned with a set of unique defined advertiser settings designating what type of advertisement is preferred for advertising), which is I-Phone in this embodiment. In response, the advertisement web address generation module  150  acquires a web address corresponding to the I-Phone advertisement (step S 26 ), and transmits the acquired web address to contact A computer for his/her advertisement viewing (step S 27 ). With the proposed method described above, marketing of advertisements can be effectively enhanced through the increasingly-popular social networking platforms. 
     In step S 21 , as an example, an advertiser solicits new advertisers through their MSN contacts list. At which time, the advertising apparatus  100  provides the first private member ID of the advertiser to the potential new advertisers which are solicited by the advertiser. Accordingly, the potential new advertisers may use the first private member ID to register for an advertiser status. Should the potential new advertisers register for advertisers status, the member module  120  would next generate a unique second public member ID and a unique second private member ID for the registered new advertisers. The described process may be unlimitedly repeated amongst the registered new advertisers and their registered new advertisers and so on. 
       FIG. 4  shows a diagram of the relationship among advertisers in a multi-level marketing structure according to an embodiment of the invention. Referring to  FIG. 4 , assume that the advertiser A on the root (level  0 , L 0 ) has contacts B, C and D (level  1 , L 1 ), contact B has contacts E (level  2 , L 2 ), and contact E has contacts F, G and H (level  3 , L 3 ). Thus, when an advertisement advertised by contact F is successfully viewed, a bonus is not only allocated to contact F but to all upper level contacts. Specifically, assume that the bonus from an advertisement advertised by contact F is X and a 70% bonus factor is used. Thus accordingly, contact F would be attributed a bonus of 0.7X, contact E would be attributed a bonus of (1−0.7)*0.7X, contact B would be attributed a bonus of (1−0.7)*(1−0.7)*0.7X, and the root contact A would be attributed a bonus of (1−0.7)*(1−0.7)*(1−0.7)*0.7X. 
     In step S 22 , a matching procedure is performed between the advertisement client settings and the advertiser settings. Detailed description of the matching procedure is as follows. 
     Referring to  FIG. 5A , a graphic interface is provided for the advertisers to select the different types of advertisement required. As shown in  FIG. 5A , the graphic interface allows the advertiser to select categories such as sports, fashion, restaurants, electronic products, finance and entertainment and the like. Besides, the advertisement clients, by using the advertisement client settings, is also able to select what type of advertisers to perform the advertising for them. The conditions for selection of advertisers are based on the follows: 
     (1) The efficiency (defined as valid clicks over a period of advertising time) attributed to the advertiser. The definition of valid clicks may depend on two factors: the number of clicks that is acknowledged as valid, and the amount of time an advertisement is opened. For the first factor, as an example, if an advertisement is repeatedly clicked by the same viewer within 24 hours, then only one click is regarded as valid. For the second factor, if an advertisement is open for a short time, said one second, then the click is also not regarded as valid. Thus, the higher the efficiency, the larger the required bonus. 
     (2) Amount of time on-line of the advertiser. To estimate the amount of time on-line, a monitoring account is provided by the monitoring module  141  of the advertising apparatus  100 . The advertiser is required to add this monitoring account in their contact list so that their on-line status can be monitored and recorded. On-line time may be determined in hours, days, and weeks or longer. Thus, the greater the amount of time online, the larger the required bonus. 
     (3) Amount of contacts of the advertiser having submitted an appropriate account name and password detectible by the advertising apparatus  100 . Thus, the higher the number of contacts, the larger the required bonus. 
     Referring to  FIG. 5B , the matching module  130  performs a matching procedure between the advertisement client settings and the advertiser settings. An advertisement to be advertised is determined according to a match between the advertiser settings and the advertiser settings. Additionally, apart from the matching procedure for determining at least an advertisement to be advertised by an advertiser, prioritization of advertisements may be performed by the matching module  130 ; especially for free advertisers. One example of a prioritization condition is the highest number of required clicks. Thus, for this example, among the plurality of advertisements, the advertisement with the highest number of required clicks would first be chosen to be advertised by the free advertisers. Additionally, the prioritization condition may also be applied to the bonus calculation formula. Herein, using the highest number of required clicks as the prioritization condition, if the advertisement has the highest number of required clicks then the bonus to the advertiser would also be higher, thus optimizing the advertising method. 
     Note that the MSN platform is used as a non-limiting example of a social networking platform in the above description. For other different social networking platforms such as Twitter, an advertiser account is still required for an advertiser to log onto the social networking platform and post a received link corresponding to an advertisement on the editable personal status or nickname area provided by the advertiser account. However, for social networking platforms such as Twitter, which do not require installation of application specific software, access to advertisements are not limited. 
     In another embodiment, the advertiser account may only have a first public member ID and not a first private member ID. In this case, the first public member ID is used for both the advertisement generation module  140  to generate a link corresponding to an advertisement and the member module  120  to solicit new advertisers. Thus, the member module  120  would only generate a second public member ID for a new advertiser and not a second private member ID, and the new advertiser would be able to use the second public member ID to perform advertising. 
     The advertising method of the invention can be recorded as a program in a storage medium for performing the above procedures, such as an optical disk, floppy disk and portable hard drive and so on. It is to be emphasized that the program of the advertising method is formed by a plurality of program codes corresponding to the procedures described above. 
     While the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of the preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. To contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements (as would be apparent to those skilled in the art). Therefore, the scope of the appended claims should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements.