Method of compensating a provider for advertisements displayed on a mobile phone

Abstract

A method and apparatus for advertising on a mobile phone. In one embodiment the method includes the steps of downloading an advertisement to the mobile phone using an advertisement server; selecting the downloaded advertisement on the mobile phone by a user of the mobile phone; providing by a server additional information in response to the user selection; and tracking the selection and additional information by the server. In another embodiment the compensation provided is in response to the display screen of said advertisement. In another embodiment the step of providing additional information includes the step of using space reserved, in the user interface of the mobile phone, for advertisements. Another aspect the invention relates to a system for displaying advertisements on a mobile phone. In one embodiment the system includes a server; and a mobile phone in communication with said server.

Claims

1. A method of advertising to a user on a mobile device viewed by the user, the method comprising: providing an advertisement for presentation to the user via the mobile device; receiving input from the user selecting the advertisement presented on the mobile device to request additional information associated with the advertisement; and billing the advertiser based on receiving the input from the user selecting the advertisement to request the additional information, wherein in response to receiving the input from the user selecting the advertisement, at least one web page is provided for presentation on the mobile device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing the at least one web page for display on the mobile device.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising informing the advertiser that additional information has been requested by the user, wherein the at least one web page is provided to the mobile device by the advertiser.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing at least one incentive to the user to request the additional information.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving input includes receiving at least one voice request from the user selecting the advertisement to request the additional information.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising performing voice recognition on the at least one voice request to recognize the user's selection of the advertisement.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein billing the advertiser includes billing the advertiser based, at least in part, on a location on the mobile device where the advertisement is displayed.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein a cost for displaying the advertisement at a banner location is higher than a cost associated with displaying the advertisement at a corner location.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein billing the advertiser includes billing the advertiser based, at least in part, on a number of pages provided for display on the mobile device.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein voice recognition is performed, at least in part, using embedded tags.

11. A system for displaying advertisements to a user on a mobile device viewed by the user comprising: at least one first server capable of communicating with the mobile device, the at least one server configured to: provide an advertisement for display to the user via the mobile device and receive input from the user of the mobile device selecting the advertisement to request additional information related to the advertisement; and bill the advertiser for the advertisement based on receiving the input from the user selecting the advertisement to request the additional information, wherein in response to receiving the input from the user selecting the advertisement, at least one web page is provided for presentation on the mobile device.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one server is configured to provide the at least one web page for presentation on the mobile device.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one server is configured to communicate with at least one advertiser server to indicate that the user has requested the additional information, and wherein the at least one web page is provided by the at least one advertiser server to the mobile device.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one server is configured to provide at least one incentive to the user to request the additional information.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the input includes at least one voice request from the user selecting the advertisement to request the additional information, and wherein the at least one voice request is processed using voice recognition to recognize the user's selection of the advertisement.

16. The device of claim 15, wherein voice recognition is performed, at least in part, using embedded tags.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one server is configured to bill the advertiser based, at least in part, on a location on the mobile device where the advertisement is displayed.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein a cost for displaying the advertisement at a banner location is higher than a cost associated with displaying the advertisement at a corner location.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the at least one server is configured to bill the advertiser based, at least in part, on a number of pages the user requests downloading.

Description

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) The foregoing and other objects, aspects, features, and advantages of the invention will become more apparent and may be better understood by referring to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

(2) FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the system of the invention;

(3) FIG. 2 is a more detailed diagram of the embodiment of the invention in FIG. 1; and

(4) FIG. 3 is a flow diagram utilized by the embodiments of the invention shown in FIGS. 1 and 2.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

(5) Referring to FIG. 1, and in brief overview, an embodiment of a system constructed in accordance with the invention includes a mobile communication device such as a cell phone 10, an advertisement server 14; an advertisement provider 18 and a network 22. The cell phone 10 is configured to receive advertisements from an advertisement server 14. The advertisement server 14 typically is part of the network of a mobile communications device provider 30. The advertisements 26 are provided to the advertisement server 14 by an advertiser content provider 18 who remunerates 28 the mobile communications device provider 30 according predetermined criteria based on the display of the advertisement on the screen 34 of the mobile communications device 10.

(6) Software built into the cell phone is capable of rendering graphics of the advertisement which are downloaded to the display. Further, the user can select the advertisement in order to obtain further information about the product.

(7) In more detail and referring to FIG. 2, a mobile communications device such as a cell phone 10 is configured to receive advertisements from a server 14 typically provided by a mobile communications device service provider 30. In one embodiment the user of the mobile communications device 10 is given an incentive to permit advertisements to be downloaded from the server 14 to the mobile communications device 10. These incentives may range from coupons or credits that are redeemable by the user for the merchandize advertised to a decrease in the monthly cost of the mobile communications service to the user. These incentives may be provided by the mobile communications service provider 30 or the advertiser content provider 18 directly.

(8) Initially the server 14 interrogates 38 the mobile communications device 10 to determine its display capabilities. The mobile communications device 10 responds with information 42 indicating its display parameters such as screen size. At this point the server 14 downloads the advertisement 46 in a form suitable for display on screen 34. The user then responds to the advertisement by transmitting a request 50 for additional screens of information (generally 46), if the user so desires.

(9) In one embodiment the location of the advertisement 46 in the display screen 34 determines the charge to the advertiser 18. For example a banner location 54 may be selected to have a higher value than a corner location 58. This is similar to the mechanism by which merchandise producers pay merchants various amounts according to the location of the producer's product on shelf space in the store. Products placed on shelves at eye level result in higher payments to the merchants than do products placed on lower or higher shelves. These reserved locations 54, 58 on the screen 34 provide one criteria for paying the service provider 30 for the download of advertisements to the mobile communications device 10.

(10) A second criterion for providing payment to the service provider 30 is provided by the interest the user has in the advertisement. That is, if the user receives an advertisement in which he or she is interest, the user can use the input device or keypad 62 of the mobile communication device 10 to send a request 50 to the server 14 for additional screens of information. In one embodiment, a screen tracking module 64 keeps track of how many screens the user requests and sends a notification to the advertiser content provider 18. This notification acts as an invoice indicating which advertisements were viewed by the user and the cost to the advertiser 18 for each of the downloaded advertisement screens.

(11) In another embodiment, a second server 72 is utilized when the user sends a request 50 for additional information in response to the advertisement. In one such embodiment the server 14 passes off control 74 of the down load of information 76 directly to the secondary server 72. In another embodiment the secondary server 72 passes the requested advertising information 78 to the server 14 which then downloads the information 46 to the mobile communication device 10. In some embodiments the second server belongs to the manufacturer of the product or service advertised or belongs to the advertiser content provider 18.

(12) Referring also to FIG. 3, the operation of an embodiment of the invention is shown. Initially the server interrogates (Step 10) the mobile communications device to determine its display capabilities. The mobile communications device responds (Step 12) with information indicating its display parameters such as screen size. The server then determines (Step 14) in which location on the screen is the advertisement is to be placed, based upon the contact between the advertiser and the mobile phone service provider. At this point the server downloads (Step 16) the advertisement in a form suitable for display on screen. The user then responds (Step 18) to the advertisement by transmitting a request for additional screens of information, if the user so desires. If the user does not desire additional information, the screen is either then taken out of idle mode for use by the user (Step 20) or another ad is displayed (Step 21) if the user does not use the screen in a predetermined amount of time.

(13) Optionally, the server maintains (Step 22) a list of the pages requested by the user. The advertiser is then billed (Step 24) by the service provider according to how many requests for additional information is made by the user or how many links into the web pages are traversed by the user. Alternatively, the cost to the advertiser for display of the web page in one embodiment varies according to the web page. A deep web page with specific information is costs the advertiser more than a high level general web page. The assumption here is that a user that wants more information is interested in the product and hence is more valuable to the advertiser. Thus for example, if a user traversed three links to get to the web page of interest, the advertiser could in one embodiment be billed for three links or the deep (i.e. 3 link) web page could be billed to the advertiser at a higher rate than the top level web page.

(14) The foregoing description has been limited to a few specific embodiments of the invention. It will be apparent, however, that variations and modifications can be made to the invention, with the attainment of some or all of the advantages of the invention. It is therefore the intent of the inventor to be limited only by the scope of the appended claims.