Patent Application: US-201615091618-A

Abstract:
the subject invention provides a method , business process and computer program product that can be applied into any type of instant messaging apps for displaying advertisement . the proposed method and system can capture and process the content of live conversation occurred within the instant messenger . based on the live conversation context , the system selects the ad content and injects it into the live conversation in such a way that all users involved in the chatting group / room can see it . the whole system includes sub systems for ad advertiser and ad publisher subscription . other key parts of this system include a central database system and a crowdsourcing based , machine learning enabled ad recommendation engine . this invention also includes a novel business process or business model based on the above mentioned system . it releases ad content through publishers online chat account . it allows individual person to act as ad publishers with almost zero cost . reciprocally , the ad publishers help improve the ad recommender engine for more precise ad delivery through crowdsourcing . this invention essentially enables an innovative forms of mesh economy . this abstract is provided for the sole purpose of complying with the abstract requirement rules that allow a reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the disclosure contained herein . this abstract is submitted with the explicit understanding that it will not be used to interpret or to limit the scope or the meaning of the claim .

Description:
in the following description , numerous details are set forth for purpose of explanation . however , one of ordinary skill in the art will realize that the invention may be practiced without the use of these specific details . in other instances , well - known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to not obscure the description of the invention with unnecessary detail . some of the terms used in this description are defined below ( in alphabetical order ) for easy reference . these terms are not rigidly restricted to these definitions . a term may be further defined by the term &# 39 ; s use in other sections of this description . “ ad ” ( e . g . ad , and / or message ) means a paid announcement , as of goods or services for sale , preferably on a network such as the internet . an ad may also be referred to as an item and / or a message . “ ad click - through rate ” ( e . g . click - through rate ) means a measurement of ad clicks per a period of time . “ ad server ” is a server that is configured for serving one or more ads to user devices . an ad server is preferably controlled by organization who implemented this invention . a server is defined below . “ advertiser ” ( e . g . messenger and / or messaging customer , etc .) means an entity that is in the business of marketing a product and / or a service to users . an advertiser may include , without limitation , a seller and / or a third - party agent for the seller . an advertiser may also be referred to as a messenger and / or a messaging customer . advertising may also be referred to as messaging . “ advertising ” means marketing a product and / or service to one or more pate consumers by using an ad . one example of advertising is publishing a sponsored search ad on a website . “ application server ” is a server that is configured for running one or more devices loaded on the application server . “ click ” ( e . g . ad click ) means a selection of an ad impression by using a selection device such as , for example , a computer mouse or a touch - sensitive display . “ client ” means the client part of a client - server architecture . a client is typically a user device and / or an application that runs on a user device . a client typically relies on a server to perform some operations . for example , an email client is an application that enables a user to send and receive email via an email server . in this example , the computer running such an email client may also be referred to as a client . “ conversion ” ( e . g . ad conversion ) means two or more user chat via instant messenger . “ database ” ( e . g . database system , etc .) means a collection of data organized in such a way that a computer program may quickly select desired pieces of the data . a database is an electronic filing system . in some instances , the term “ database ” is used as shorthand for a “ database management system ”. a database may be implemented as any type of data storage structure capable of providing for the retrieval and storage of a variety of data types . for instance , a database may include one or more accessible memory structures such as a cd - rom , tape , digital storage library , flash drive , floppy disk , optical disk , magnetic - optical disk , erasable programmable read - only memory ( eprom ), random access memory ( ram ), magnetic or optical cards , etc . a database may be implemented as sql database or nosql database , newsql and other big data platform . “ device ” means hardware , software or a combination thereof . a device may sometimes be referred to as an apparatus . examples of a device include , without limitation , a software application such as android mobile application , web browser plugin , whatsup ™, line ™ or wechat ™ etc . ; or hardware such as a mobile phone , a laptop computer , a server , a display : or a computer mouse and / or a hard disk . “ impression ” ( e . g . ad impression ) means a delivery of an ad to a user device for viewing by a user . “ network ” means a connection , between any two or more computers , that permits the transmission of data . a network may be any combination of networks including , without limitation , the internet , a local area network , a wide area network , a wireless network , and / or a cellular network . “ publisher ” means an entity that publishes , on a network , ad item into an instant messenger &# 39 ; s real time conversation context or a web page having content and / or ads , etc . “ server ” means a software application that , provides services to other computer programs ( and their users ) on the same computer or on another computer or computers . a server may also refer to the physical computer that has been set aside to run specific server application . for example , when the software apache http server is used as the web server for a company &# 39 ; s website , the computer running apache may also be called the web server . server applications may be divided among server computers over an extreme range , depending upon the workload . “ software ” means a computer program that is written in a programming language that may be used by one of ordinary skill in the art . the programming language chosen should be compatible with the computer on which the software application is to be executed and , in particular , with the operating system of that computer . examples of suitable programming languages include , without limitation , object pascal , c , c ++ and / or java . further , the functions of some embodiments , when described as a series of steps for a method , could be implemented as a series of software instructions for being operated by a processor such that the embodiments could be implemented as software , hardware , or a combination thereof . computer - readable media are discussed in more detail in a separate section below . “ system ” means a device or multiple coupled devices . a device is defined above . “ user ” ( e . g . consumer , etc .) means an operator of a user device . a user is typically a person who seeks to acquire a product and / or service . for example , a user may be a woman who is talking about shopping for a new cell phone to replace her current cell phone . the term “ user ” may also refer to a user device , depending on the context . “ user device ” ( e . g . computer , user computer client and / or server , etc .) means a single computer or a network of interacting computers . a user device is a computer that a user may use to communicate with other devices over a network , such as the internet . a user device is a combination of a hardware system , a software operating system , and perhaps one or more software application programs . examples of a user device include , without limitation , a laptop computer , a palmtop computer , a smart phone , a cell phone , a mobile phone , an ibm - type personal computer ( pc ) having an operating system such as , android ™, windows phone ™, ios ™, microsoft windows ™, an apple ™ computer having an operating system such as mac - os , hardware having a java - os operating system , and / or a sun microsystems ™ workstation having a unix operating system . “ web browser ” means a software program that may display text or graphics or both , from web pages on websites . examples of a web browser include , without limitation , mozilla firefox ™, microsoft internet explorer ™, chrome ™, and safari ™. “ web page ” means documents written in a mark - up language including , without limitation , html ( hypertext mark - up language ), vrml ( virtual reality modeling language ), html5 , json , xml ( extensible mark - up language ), and / or other related computer languages . a web page may also refer to a collection of such documents reachable through one specific internet address and / or through one specific website . a web page may also refer to any document obtainable through a particular url ( uniform resource locator ). “ web porter ” ( e . g . public portal ) means a website or service that offers a broad array of resources and services such as , for example , email , forums , search engines , and online shopping malls . the first web portals were online services , such as aol , that provided access to the web . however , now , most of the traditional search engines ( e . g . yahoo ™) have transformed themselves into web portals to attract and keep a larger audience . “ web server ” is a server configured for serving at least one web page to a web browser . an example of a web server is a yahoo !™ web server . a server is defined above . “ website ” means one or more web pages . a website preferably includes a plurality of web pages virtually connected by links or url addresses to form a coherent group . while the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms , specific embodiments thereof have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are herein described in detail . it should be understood , however , that the description herein of specific embodiments is not intended to limit the invention to the particular forms disclosed , but on the contrary , the intention is to cover all modifications , equivalents , and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims . users of instant messaging clients have become accustomed to asking for information on the same display surface as is their instant messaging graphical user interface . for example , a user may ask for information about one brand of product . the other user in the same conversation context may help him / her by presenting a text , graphic , audio , video and / or url linkage . these helps are all free . this invention is a system that allow any instant messenger user to be able to earn money by presenting precisely ad to his / her chatting partner . this invention is a system allows instant messenger user to do zero cost startup business and help improve ad recommendation engine in a crowd sourcing model . it is a kind of mesh economy . fig1 is a block diagram illustrating one example of a system for advertising into instant messenger chatting context 10 . the system for advertising into instant messenger chatting context 10 includes , but is not limited to , devices 102 , 104 , 106 , 108 ( only 4 of which are illustrated ). the devices include , but not limited to , non - mobile computers , wireless devices , laptop computers , mobile phones , personal information devices , personal digital / data assistants ( pda ), hand - held devices etc . however , the present invention is not limited to these target electronic devices and more , fewer or others types of target electronic devices can also be used . the target devices 102 , 104 , 106 , 108 function as client devices in some instances and server devices in other instances . these devices 102 , 104 can be used by publishers to capture live chat content . web server devices 110 ( only one of which are illustrated ) is a web server farm that includes one or more web server that serves communication coming from the internet 100 . application server devices 112 process data coming from the front end web servers and send requests to real time data process dusters 114 and data storage devices 118 — batch process duster 116 fetch data from data storage devices 118 and process the data and store result back into data storage devices 118 . data storage devices 118 includes , but is not limited to , relational database management system , nosql database , newsql database , and other big data storage platform . fig2 depicts one example of a graphical user interface running on a computing device capable of running an instant messaging client and / or web browser , according to one embodiment the whole gui 200 holds several tabs including , but not limited to , promoted ad 202 , publisher performance statistics 204 , and settings 206 , etc . promoted ad 202 tab includes , but not limited to , components 210 , 212 , 214 , 216 , 218 , 220 , 222 , 224 , 226 , 228 , 230 , 232 , 234 , 236 , 238 , 240 , and 242 , etc . fig3 is a block diagram illustrating one example of overall flow chart about how the chat context is processed and ad is recommended . an advertiser may , via a user terminal 108 , register with the website 110 to get permissions to create and set up ad campaigns . then , an ad is selected based on real time data process 114 , which contains an ad recommendation engine running on . real time data process 114 , make recommendation based on the data send from publisher &# 39 ; s terminals including , but not limited to 102 , 104 . the precisely recommended ad will be sent and displayed on users terminals include , but not limited to , 106 , 107 . at 300 , the client application captures the conversation in real time . the real time conversation content can be captured in different ways . for instance , if the device supports a desktop web browser , a browser add - on can be developed to capture all real time internet traffic including instant messenger &# 39 ; s real time conversation content . for another instance , it the device is a smart phone , a background service can be developed to listen on any user interface status changing info including any new message arrived . once the real time conversation content is captured at 300 . the info can be processed in the next step . at 302 , the conversation content may or may not be preprocessed before the into will be sent to the server for getting recommended ad items . for instance , the preprocess includes , but not limited to , sentiment lexicon generation . at 304 , the processed info is sent to backend system over the internet 100 in a secure way . at 306 , the client application received recommended ad items from the server side . at 308 , the client application presents ad items on the gui 200 . at 310 , if the publisher setting choose auto release 210 , the recommended ad items &# 39 ; info will be presented in columns including , but not limited to , 214 , 216 , 218 , 220 , 222 , 224 , and 226 , etc . at 222 , publishers can modify the keywords associated with this ad item . at 224 , publishers can modify the score number , which determine the precise of the recommendation . all modification is sent back to server side for updating recommendation engine model . these features are important as they allow publishers to participate on improving recommendation engine &# 39 ; s machine learning model in a crowdsourcing way . at 316 , the ad items are released into conversation context . at 310 if the publisher choose manual release 212 , the publisher get opportunity review the recommended ad item . also , the publisher can modify values at 222 and 224 . all modification is sent back to server side for updating recommendation engine model too . at 312 , publishers select check boxes 226 . at 314 , publishers click release button 228 . at 316 , the client application send the recommended and / or selected ad items into conversation context . at 318 , the log about the ad items releasing is sent back to the server side . fig4 is a block diagram illustrating one example of how an ad is released into chat context and how a publisher can contribute to improve backend recommend engine . at 400 , client application captures all chatting message . at 402 , the captured message is preprocessed . at 404 . the preprocessed messages are sent back to the backend for further processing . at 406 , client application received the recommended ad items from the server . at 408 , the client application presents ad item on gui 200 . at 410 , publisher can adjust the associated key words at 222 and the recommendation precise score at 224 . at 412 , adjust keywords and / score are sent back to the server side for updating recommendation engine &# 39 ; s machine learning model . in this way , this indentation applied crowd sourcing model into helping improve recommendation engine to get precise target ad in a more and more precise way . these features are important in this invention , for a machine learning training process , one of the difficult part is getting enough testing data to train the model . with these features , this invention allows publishers contribute to continually improve the recommendation engine &# 39 ; s machine learning model in a crowd sourcing way . fig5 is a sequence diagram illustrating one example of how the d content , can be distributed to any domain server 500 . this is important as this invention need to be functional even without im vendor &# 39 ; s support . at 602 , a user click an ad item and the request is sent to any content server 604 , which may highly possible the advertiser &# 39 ; s own content server 504 , at 504 , it sends the ad item content back to the user . meanwhile it asynchronously sends user request log to front - end service 606 . alternately , user &# 39 ; s device at 602 can also send request log to front - end service 506 if it supports web browser with javascript enabled at 508 , the backend service receives and processes logs sent from the frontend , fig6 is a use case diagram illustrating one example of how the business model included in this invention bring publishers , users , and advertisers together and do advertising in a shared economy way . at 602 it represents a scenario which shows a group of people are chatting over the internet . registered publishers and their online friends as users 612 are included . at 608 , it represent publishers who registered on this invented system to be ad item publishers . these publishers then registered with any online chatting tool s 610 including , but not limited to , whatsup ™, line ™. and wechat ™ etc . this invention delivers ad items into the conversation context through publishers chatting system . as reward , the publisher can earn certain money from this invented system . at 604 , it represents a system that allows publishers to register 622 and manage their account 624 . also , publishers can do lots of other things including but not limited to , checking earning , ad click through rate etc . at 606 , it represents a system that allows advertisers or their agents to register 614 and manage advertisement campaigns 618 . these ad campaigns will be delivered to online chatting users through ad recommender engine and publisher &# 39 ; s online chatting account . at 616 , advertisers can also do many other things including , but not limited to , checking each campaign &# 39 ; s performance etc . r . l . zeff and b . aronson , advertising on the internet , john wiley & amp ; sons . inc ., 1999 . a . e . schlosser , s . shavitt and a . kanfer , “ survey of internet users &# 39 ; attitudes toward internet advertising ,” journal of interactive marketing , vol . 13 , no . 3 , pp . 34 - 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