Methods, apparatuses, and computer-readable media for serving annotations are disclosed. When a contact of a user recommends an ad, the score of the ad may be boosted in an ad auction. The amount of boosting depends on contact affinity. Contacts with greater contact affinity may be more influential, and ads that are recommended by such contacts may have a higher click-through rate. The greater the affinity between the user and contact, the greater the boost to the ad score. Affinity may be measured by a weight value, which is determined by, for example, social network interactions, e-mail/instant messaging communications, and phone logs and contact lists.

Embodiments of the invention provide a computer-implemented method of participating in a web-based content provision process, e.g. an ad-bidding process for proposing an ad to serve for an ad impression. The method can include recording physical behavioural information, e.g. emotional state, attentiveness, gaze tracking, etc., to infer or further refine a user profile for a user or to establish or further refine a target profile for a piece of media content, e.g. an advertisement. A quantitative indicator can be obtained by comparing user profiles with target profiles, which can be used to automate the content provision process. The process can use a plurality of preset user types and a plurality of preset ad target types, whereby each user is allocated to one or more of the preset user types and each ad is allocated to one or more of the preset ad types.

A system receives registrations of users specifying a geographic preference and product preferences for demonstrations. The system likewise receives notifications of available demonstrations from vendors. Relevant demonstrations are identified for each user. In response to detecting a demonstration meeting the user's geographic preference, a notification of the demonstration is transmitted to the user. Notifications may be sent in response to demonstrations within a threshold distance from a location specified by the user, upon the user entering a store near a scheduled time for a relevant demonstration. Notifications may be sent in response to detecting a relevant demonstration within a threshold time from a predicted shopping trip of the user.

Systems, methods, and devices relating to automatic facial detection and age and/or gender determination. An image source provides a sequence of images of an audience. Each image is analyzed to detect each face in the image. Specific features of each face are then extracted and, from these features, the gender and/or age of the face is determined by referring to previous determination results. Once the age and/or gender of the audience has been determined, a server can then select which advertisement spots can be presented to the audience. This may be done by having the server request access to a database of available advertising spots, submits specific parameters as the basis for the selection of the advertisement. Image source, image processing subsystems, advertisement displays and advertisements databases can be collocated or distributed over various network resources.

The disclosure is directed at a method for data collection and processing within an online system which monitors a user's activity on the online system and then creates a list of business offers for display to the user. The list of business offers is not displayed to the user until the user performs an action relating to a request to review the list of business offers.

Techniques for publishing content on the online social network during a determined time interval are described. A publisher can receive, from a device of a user, a first content to publish on an online social network. Additionally, the publisher can access a plurality of first-degree connections associated with the user, and member activity data for the plurality of first-degree connections of the user. The member activity data can include temporal data indicative of time parameters for member connections to the online social network for each first-degree connection. Furthermore, the publisher can determine, using a processor, a first time interval to publish the first content based on the accessed member activity data. Subsequently, the publisher can publish, on the online social network, the first content during the first time interval.

Systems and methods for automatically enhancing online advertisements by inserting annotations are provided. The system can identify a content serving opportunity to display a content item. The system can, responsive to selection of a content item corresponding to the content serving opportunity, identify candidate annotation types. The system can determine, based on the content serving opportunity and the content item, for each of the candidate annotation types, an annotation type relevancy score indicating a level of relevance of the candidate annotation type to the content serving opportunity. The system can select at least one annotation type of the candidate annotation types based on the annotation type relevancy score. The system can generate, for the selected annotation type, an annotation corresponding to the selected annotation type. The generated annotation can include information related to the content item. The information can be received from a source data feed of the content provider.

Techniques are described for triggering conditional automated social posts. According to an embodiment, a set of one or more conditions is received through a user interface by a system executing on one or more computing devices. The system monitors one or more social media channels for target content that has been posted on at least one social media channel of the one or more social media channels. In response to detecting, by the system executing on one or more computing devices, that the target content has been posted on at least one social media channel of the one or more social media channels, the system determines whether the set of one or more conditions are satisfied. In response to determining that the set of one or more conditions are satisfied, the system triggers an action responsive to the target content.

A method comprising: obtaining a service point location, the service point location being associated with a logical identifier assigned to end-user equipment used in an attempt to make an online transaction; obtaining at least one authorized transaction point location, the at least one authorized transaction point location being associated with transaction object information provided via the end-user equipment; comparing the service point location to each of the at least one authorized transaction point location; and performing an action related to validation of the online transaction based on a result of the comparing. Also provided is an apparatus for implementing this method.

A method of serving targeted content messages for display in a website accessed in a browser program of a networked computer communicatively connected to a network at a network address for communications, delivers uniquely targeted content messages displayed in websites viewed in web browsers. The method includes placing a script device in a website file, processing the website file, together with the script device by a particular web browser on download of the website file, including by determining the network address of the networked computer, determining an identifier of the website file, and sending an artifact representing the network address and the identifier over the network to a server computer. The method also includes detecting the network address and the identifier by the server computer, querying a database for a database article related to the network address and the identifier, constructing a script program stored in memory of the server computer for the particular browser and website file, and constructing an ad device stored in memory of the web browser device from the script program. The method further includes calling the server computer by the ad device by communication of an identifier representing an action of the web browser device, receiving the identifier by the server computer, querying the database for a select message artifact related to the script program, the identifier, the website file, and the web browser, and responding by the server computer to the web browser with the select message artifact. A message represented by the select message artifact is displayed in the website then viewed in a browser window of the web browser. Messages can be prioritized and are uniquely targeted in content, based on real-time activities of the web browser.