A system and method is provided for adding an advertisement to a digital message and providing additional communication data to a recipient that interacts with the advertisement regardless of the network device the recipient is utilizing. An advertisement generator residing on a network host accepts digital messages from contributors and allows the contributors to select an advertisement to be displayed with their contributed messages. These digital messages may be sent to specified recipients or published on a Web site. Using stored personal data associated with the contributor and with the recipient of a digital message, in addition to the content of the message itself, the advertisement generator suggests advertisements to be included with the digital messages based on their contextual relevance. In exchange for including an advertisement with a digital message, a contributor is compensated. If the contributor-selected advertisement is provided by a third party advertiser, the message, contributor, and advertisement data is utilized to compensate the contributor of that message for sending it to at least one recipient or posting it on a Web site. If the advertisement is interactive, and the advertisement is interacted with, the advertisement generator will provide the recipient with additional communication data in a format that can be understood by the recipient network device.

Examples of techniques for displaying an advertisement for a product of interest are disclosed. In one example implementation according to aspects of the present disclosure, a computer-implemented method includes identifying, by a processing device, a product of interest. The method further includes retrieving, by the processing device, information about the product of interest. The method further includes retrieving, by the processing device, an advertisement associated with the product of interest based at least in part on the information about the product of interest. The method further includes displaying, by the processing device, the advertisement associated with the product of interest.

Examples of techniques for displaying an advertisement for a product of interest are disclosed. In one example implementation according to aspects of the present disclosure, a computer-implemented method includes identifying, by a processing device, a product of interest. The method further includes retrieving, by the processing device, information about the product of interest. The method further includes retrieving, by the processing device, an advertisement associated with the product of interest based at least in part on the information about the product of interest. The method further includes displaying, by the processing device, the advertisement associated with the product of interest.

Embodiments provide a social networking platform offering various services, such as, facilitating aggregation and management of a user's interaction on one or more social networking platforms, offering enhanced control over the level of privacy associated with the flow of user data, offering tools to customize the user's exposure to advertisement-related content on the social networking platform(s), integrating features to control aspects of how data/content is presented to and visualized by the user, empowering the user to multicast direct messages to other users without the other users having to meet certain constraints, empowering the user to create and/or join a group based on messaging threads, and the like. One or more of these enhanced services/features are associated with a powerful framework of authentication/permission model for access control.

In one implementation a method of transmitting a multimedia file over a data network is provided that involves receiving from a device in a data network a first message in a first protocol that request first data associated with the multimedia file, the first data being useable by the device to establish a streaming session that involves a transmission of the multimedia file. The first message includes identifying data of a referring site. The method also involves transmitting to the device the first data and optionally the identifying data of the referring site and then receiving from the device a second message in a second protocol for the purpose of creating a streaming session associated with the multimedia file. A streaming session is then created for transmitting the multimedia file to the device. In another implementation a method is provided that involves receiving in a computing device from a referring site an identifier of first data associated with a multimedia file and identifying data of the referring site, wherein the first data is useable for establishing a streaming session for downloading the multimedia file. The method further involves transmitting from the computing device a first message in a first protocol that requests the first data associated with the multimedia file and receiving in the computing device the first data. Upon receiving the first data the computing device transmits a second message in a second protocol for the purpose of creating the streaming session associated with the multimedia file, the second message including the first data and the identifying data of the referring site. The computing device then receives via the streaming session, all or a portion of the multimedia file. In some implementations, the first protocol and the second protocol are the same.

A computer implemented method for the automated analysis or use of data is implemented by a voice assistant. The method comprises the steps of: (a) storing in a memory a structured, machine-readable representation of data that conforms to a machine-readable language (machine representation); the machine representation including representations of user speech or text input to a human/machine interface; and (b) automatically processing the machine representations to analyse the user speech or text input.

A computer implemented method for the automated analysis or use of data is implemented by a voice assistant. The method comprises the steps of: (a) storing in a memory a structured, machine-readable representation of data that conforms to a machine-readable language (machine representation); the machine representation including representations of user speech or text input to a human/machine interface; and (b) automatically processing the machine representations to analyse the user speech or text input.

A computer implemented method for the automated analysis or use of data is implemented by a voice assistant. The method comprises the steps of: (a) storing in a memory a structured, machine-readable representation of data that conforms to a machine-readable language (machine representation); the machine representation including representations of user speech or text input to a human/machine interface; and (b) automatically processing the machine representations to analyse the user speech or text input.

Techniques for identifying groups of local features in an image and presenting advertisement information associated with stored images that match one or more features within the group of local features are described. The techniques include providing an image, identifying a region of interest in the image, providing a user-selectable link associated with the region of interest in the image, receiving a request for the region of interest in the image via the user-selectable link, and presenting advertisement information associated with a stored image that matches one or more features within the requested region of interest.

A dynamic digital advertising content system having a front end system and a back end system, and used to present product content to a user's computing device in the form of a digital circular. The back end system provides retailers and third party access to upload, and update, product content information for the digital circular, including videos and animations. The dynamic digital advertising content system can include integrations for third-parties such as digital coupon providers and loyalty program providers. The system permits users the ability to share with other users merchandise displayed in the digital circular and/or selected for a shopping list. Such shared content can be dynamically arranged for subsequent presentation on a computing device of the recipient. The digital circular is further customizable for individual retailers or retailer locations, as well as customizable based on detected histories and/or characteristics of the user receiving the digital circular.