Delivering content based on physical object characteristics

At a content portal computer system configured to provide content to other computer systems, a method for providing content to a computer system, the method comprising:

• an act of receiving at least an object identifier from a computer system, the object identifier corresponding to a physical object that was detected at least within a specified proximity of a component of the computer system, the presentation surface for presenting content at the computer system;
• an act of accessing object keywords corresponding to the received object identifier;
• an act of identifying appropriate content and corresponding layout information to return to the computer system in response to receiving the object identifier by at least one of:
• an act of determining the commonality between the accessed object keywords and target keywords received from content providers;
• and
• an act of determining content placement priorities corresponding to content providers;
• and
• an act of sending the identified appropriate content and corresponding layout information to the computer system for presentation on the presentation surface.

In a network environment, a distributed system for presenting content based on the characteristics of a physical object, the system comprising:

• a computer system including:
• one or more processors;
• system memory;
• a presentation surface for presenting content;
• and
• one or more computer-readable media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that when executed by a processor cause the computer system to perform the following:
• detect that a physical object is within a specific proximity of a component of the computer system;
• access an object identifier corresponding to the detected physical object;
• submit at least the accessed object identifier to a content portal;
• receive content and corresponding layout information from the content portal, the received content determined to be appropriate for presentation on the presentation surface based at least on the submitted object identifier;
• filtering a subset of content for presentation on the presentation surface, the filtered subset of content satisfying content filter conditions at the computer system, the filtered subset of content filtered from among the received content;
• and
• present the filtered subset of content on the presentation surface in accordance with corresponding layout information;
• and
• a content portal including:
• one or more processors;
• system memory;
• one or more databases for storing object keywords and target keywords;
• and
• one or more computer-readable media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that when executed by a processor cause the content portal to perform the following:
• receive at least an object identifier from a computer system, the object identifier corresponding to a physical object that was detected within a specific proximity of a component of the computer system, the presentation surface for presenting content at the computer system;
• access object keywords corresponding to the received object identifier;
• identify appropriate content and corresponding layout information to return to the computer system in response to receiving the object identifier by at least one of:
• determining the commonality between the accessed object keywords and target keywords received from content providers;
• and
• determining content placement priorities corresponding to content providers;
• and
• send the identified appropriate content and corresponding layout information to the computer system for presentation on the presentation surface.