Patent ID: 8737678

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for facilitating the rendering of third-party in-image applications in connection with images published on webpages, the method comprising: (a) providing a webpage publisher with software code for insertion into a webpage, wherein the software code, when executed, functions to identify an image that has been published on the webpage and submit the image to a service provider's computer system; the service provider's computer system performing the steps of (b) assigning an image key to the image; (c) processing the image through an image tagging engine, wherein the image tagging engine tags the image with one or more contextual tags based on the content within the image; (d) maintaining an image data repository, wherein the one or more contextual tags are indexed by the image key; (e) providing the webpage publisher with the image key for linking to the published image; (f) providing the webpage publisher with an in-image application interface; (g) enabling one or more third-party in-image applications based on the one or more contextual tags; (h) receiving a data request from an enabled in-image application, upon user-activation of the enabled in-image application, wherein the data request includes the image key; (i) conducting a data search of the image data repository based on the image key; and (j) providing the one or more contextual tags, responsive to the data request, for rendering of the enabled and user-activated third-party in-image application, wherein the third-party in-image application uses the contextual tags to perform its respective function.