On-line interactive system and method for providing content and advertising information to a targeted set of viewers

Abstract

Prioritized queues of advertising and content data are generated by a queue builder and sent to an on-line queue manager. A computer mediated communications network provides content and subscriber data to the queue builder and receives content segment play lists from the on-line queue manager. An exposure accounting module calculates and stores information about the number of exposures of targeted material received by subscribers and generates billing information. An information warehouse manager is employed to receive data from advertisers' data bases and third party sources as well as from the computer mediated communications network.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCES [0001] This is a continuation application of U.S. Ser. No. 10 / 394,275, filed Mar. 24, 2003; which is a continuation application of U.S. Ser. No. 09 / 660,360, filed Sep. 12, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,601,041; which is a continuation application of U.S. Ser. No. 09 / 438,540, filed Nov. 12, 1999, now abandoned; which is a continuation application of U.S. Ser. No. 08 / 503,268, filed Jul. 17, 1995, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,026,368.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention is directed to a system to be used in conjunction with various on-line networks that are both now in existence and yet to be created in the future. The system will assemble and provide content and advertising information to the network so as to be preferably distributed to a targeted set of viewers. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] It has been known in the prior art that targeted advertisements can be used in conjunction with a network for an interactive service as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,347,6...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, this patent does not disclose how advertisement queues that are intelligently prioritized and interactively updated are built.

Thus, although the patent discloses that on-line networks can be used to deliver targeted advertisements, it does not disclose the mechanism for building targeted queues accounting for the exposures of users to those ads, and the real-time management of priorities, frequencies, and types of content to be shown.

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