초록 ▼

Interactive information and entertainment service customers see advertisers' bids for their attention which are displayed on their display screens and choose which advertisements to view. For each advertisement viewed, the advertisers' bid amount would pay for a portion of the user's service or usag

Interactive information and entertainment service customers see advertisers' bids for their attention which are displayed on their display screens and choose which advertisements to view. For each advertisement viewed, the advertisers' bid amount would pay for a portion of the user's service or usage charge. A display on the user's terminal screen includes the advertisers most willing to pay for the user's attention and the dollar amount bid. If the user chooses to see a particular advertiser's message, then the user is reimbursed, or a credit is applied to the user's service account for the amount of the bid promised by the advertiser whose message was viewed. Customer interest profiles and service usage data collected by the service provider are used to identify particular user characteristics to advertisers. Advertisers define user characteristics of particular desirability and place a dollar value on having messages viewed by individual users based on the desirability of the user.

대표청구항 ▼

[ What is claimed is:] [8.] A method for managing access to advertising carried by a communications network, comprising:receiving in a network, an advertiser's maximum and minimum bids for absentee bidding;receiving in a network, a user request for a service;accessing in the network, a user profile

[ What is claimed is:] [8.] A method for managing access to advertising carried by a communications network, comprising:receiving in a network, an advertiser's maximum and minimum bids for absentee bidding;receiving in a network, a user request for a service;accessing in the network, a user profile of user characteristics about the user;accessing in the network, at least two advertiser specifications of user characteristics, each specification associated with a respective advertiser;comparing in the network, the characteristics of the user from the user profile, with the user characteristics from each advertiser specification;selecting in the network, first and second selected advertiser specifications from the at least two specifications, corresponding to selected first and second respective advertisers;computing in the network, a computed bid value that is derived from said maximum and minimum bids for said selected first and second respective advertisers;transmitting in the network to the user said computed bid value for display to the user;receiving in the network from the user, a user selection of a bid value corresponding to a selected advertiser;transmitting in the network to the user, an advertising message about the selected advertiser for an advertising display to the user; andproviding to the user a reward corresponding to the selected bid value, in response to the user having selected the advertiser.