Dynamic e-mail
AssigneeMypoints.Com Inc.
InventorsJames John Bohannon, Robert B. Bushman
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system may present dynamic content to an e-mail recipient in the form of an image implementing frame-sequence animation. Each frame may present an offer to the recipient. Upon selection of an offer, the system may determine which offer the recipient selected by determining which frame was displayed when the recipient responded. The e-mail may include an image URI specifying a frame-sequence animation image. The image URI may include an identifier, which may allow the system to determine when the recipient opened the e-mail message, and a link URI, which may also include the identifier. When the recipient indicates a response to an offer, the system may associate the link URI with the image URI and may determine to which offer the recipient was responding.
Claims49
A method of sending, via e-mail, content to which a recipient may respond, the method executed by a system comprising one or more servers, each server comprising a processor and a memory storing machine readable instructions executable to cause one or more of the processors to perform the method, the method comprising:
- transmitting, from a server, an electronic mail (e-mail) message to a recipient, the e-mail message including:
- a first uniform resource identifier (URI) for specifying to an e-mail client associated with the recipient a location from which to request an image to display within the e-mail message;
- and
- a second URI for specifying to either the e-mail client or a browser client associated with the recipient a location from which to request data when the recipient selects the image displayed within the e-mail message;
- receiving, at the server, from the e-mail client a first request, the first request for the image specified by the first URI;
- interpreting, at the server, the received first request to determine a plurality of frames to transmit as an image in a multi-frame image format in response to the first request, the plurality of frames to be sequentially displayed by the e-mail client;
- transmitting, from the server, the image to the e-mail client in response to the first request, the plurality of frames to be displayed to the recipient by the e-mail client;
- receiving, at the server, a second request, the second request for data associated with the second URI, the second request indicating that the recipient selected the image;
- determining, at the server, one of the plurality of frames that was displayed to the recipient when the recipient selected the image to cause the second request;
- performing, at the server, an action in response to the determination of the one of the plurality of frames displayed to the recipient when the recipient selected the image.
A method of communicating with a recipient of an electronic mail (e-mail) message, the method executed on one or more computer processors, the method comprising:
- transmitting the e-mail message from a server to the recipient, the e-mail message including:
- a first uniform resource identifier (URI) specifying a location from which to request an image to display within the e-mail message;
- and
- a second URI specifying a location from which to request data when the recipient selects the image displayed within the e-mail message;
- receiving at the server a first request, the first request for the image specified by the first URI;
- transmitting from the server, in response to the first request, an image in a multi-frame image format comprising a plurality of frames, each frame associated with particular information, and each of the plurality of frames displayed sequentially to the recipient;
- receiving by the server a second request, the second request for data associated with the second URI, which second request indicates that the recipient has selected the image;
- determining in the server which of the plurality of frames was displayed when the recipient selected the image;
- and
- performing an action by the server based on the determination of which of the plurality of frames was displayed when the recipient selected the image.
A method of presenting dynamic content, the method comprising:
- transmitting, from a server, hypertext markup language (HTML) code comprising:
- a first uniform resource identifier (URI) for specifying an image to display;
- and
- a second URI for specifying a location from which to request data when the image is selected by a user;
- receiving, at the server, a first request, the first request for the image specified by the first URI;
- transmitting, from the server, an image in response to the first request;
- receiving, at the server, a second request, the second request for data associated with the second URI;
- determining, at the server, a temporal relationship between the first request and the second request;
- and
- performing, at the server, one or more actions in response to the determined relationship.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.