Patent ID: 7330824

Claim:
A method for targeting content to network devices over a data network, comprising: storing user profiles for plural network devices, each user profile including user and device addressing information; storing a group profile that includes attributes for targeting content; matching the user profiles to the group profile to target the content to one or more of the plural devices; generating individual scheduling messages for the targeted network devices from the device addressing information of the matched user profiles, the messages scheduling download and activation of the content, each of the scheduling messages containing data that identifies the content to be downloaded to a targeted network device, each of the scheduling messages further containing data that schedules activation of the downloaded content at a time subsequent to content download in a manner free of user intervention; and scheduling content download by initiating delivery of the scheduling messages to the targeted network devices in advance of content activation to cause the targeted network devices to download and activate the content according to the scheduling messages; receiving one of the delivered scheduling messages; in response to receiving the scheduling message, automatically establishing a connection in order to download the content targeted in the received scheduling message; requesting the content identified in the scheduling message; downloading the requested content; and activating the downloaded content free of user intervention at a time subsequent to content download according to the data that schedules activation of the content in the scheduling message.