Patent ID: 8321280

Claim:
A system, comprising: a processor; a storage medium; and a communications bus coupling the processor and the storage medium; wherein the storage medium is encoded to include historical demand data for a plurality of advertising inventories; and wherein the storage medium is encoded to include executable code to perform a process including: generating a first demand forecast for each inventory of the plurality of advertising inventories for a first predetermined period of time based on the historical data, generating a second demand forecast for each inventory of the plurality of advertising inventories for a second predetermined period of time based on the historical data, adjusting the first demand forecast for each inventory of the plurality of advertising inventories by removing an existing demand for each inventory of the plurality of advertising inventories, and generating a net forecasting demand for each inventory of the plurality of advertising inventories for a third predetermined period of time by combining the second demand forecast and an adjusted first demand forecast, the third predetermined period of time based on the first and second predetermined periods, wherein combining the second demand forecast and the adjusted first demand forecast includes taking a weighted average of the second demand forecast and the adjusted first demand forecast, and wherein the weighted average is calculated according to: F = σ l 2 ⁢ μ s + σ s 2 ⁢ μ l σ l 2 + σ s 2 where, μ s is the mean of the second demand forecast, μ l is the mean of the adjusted first demand forecast, σ 2 s is the variance of the second demand forecast, and σ 2 l is the variance of the adjusted first demand forecast.