System and Method for Live-Interaction Advertising
OwnerEdward W. Mandelinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system, method, and software for providing live-interaction between a user and an advertising contact in a networked environment. After conducting a search for information over the network, the user is presented with search results in addition to advertisements. The advertisements include hyperlinks to allow the user to communicate with an advertising contact utilizing various methods over the network. For example, the hyperlinks may be email messaging, text messaging, VoIP messaging, or even chat utilities. The user selects a desired hyperlink and an appropriate communications link is established to the advertising contact. The user may then communicate directly to the advertising contact over this link to obtain additional information about the advertised good or service.
Claims18
A method for providing live interaction in a networked environment between a user and an advertiser through the user's HTML browser, the method steps comprising:
- accepting an advertisement file from the advertiser, wherein the advertisement file comprises an advertisement and contact information directed to an advertising contact that is associated with the advertiser;
- associating one or more communication mechanisms with the contact information;
- generating at least one hyperlink icon for each communication mechanism, wherein the communication mechanism may be accessed via the respective at least one hyperlink icon;
- displaying, to the user, the hyperlink icon in proximity to the advertisement in a browser window;
- accepting a communication request from the user, wherein the communication request is triggered by the user's selection of a hyperlink icon for a particular communication mechanism;
- and
- initiating a communication session between the user and the advertising contact via the communication mechanism.
A computer software program tangibly embodied in a computer readable medium, the program including machine-readable instructions executable by a computer processor to perform a method for providing live interaction in a networked environment between a user and an advertiser through the user's HTML browser, the program steps comprising:
- accepting an advertisement file from the advertiser, wherein the advertisement file comprises an advertisement and contact information directed to an advertising contact that is associated with the advertiser;
- associating one or more communications mechanisms with the contact information;
- generating at least one hyperlink icon for each communication mechanism, wherein the communication mechanism may be accessed via the respective at least one hyperlink icon;
- displaying, to the user, the hyperlink icon in proximity to the advertisement in a browser window;
- accepting a communication request from the user, wherein the communication request is triggered by the user's selection of a hyperlink icon for a particular communication mechanism;
- and
- initiating a communication session between the user and the advertising contact via the communication mechanism.
A system for providing live interaction between a user and an advertiser over a computer network through the user's HTML browser, the system comprising:
- an advertisement contact module, wherein the advertisement contact module receives an advertisement file from an advertisement publishing service, and wherein the advertisement contact module parses the advertisement file to obtain contact information related to an advertising contact;
- a mechanism association module, wherein the mechanism association module receives the contact information and associates each unit of contact information with an appropriate communication mechanism;
- and
- an icon hyperlink module, wherein the icon hyperlink module generates at least one hyperlink icon for each communication mechanism and associates each generated hyperlink icon with its respective communication mechanism.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.