question

Why would media companies be interested in providing specific advertising to individual customers?

Information

Patent Issued for Overwriting Existing Media Content with Viewer-Specific Advertisements (USPTO 9338521)

Marketing Weekly News

2016 MAY 28 (VerticalNews) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Marketing Weekly News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by VerticalNews journalists, a patent by the inventors Cheng, Raymond (Sammamish, WA); Lin, Ning (Redmond, WA); Su, Pu (Redmond, WA); Sood, Vishal (Bothell, WA), filed on February 22, 2013, was published online on May 10, 2016.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 9338521, is Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC (Redmond, WA).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "Television shows, movies and other forms of media are increasingly transferred on demand to consumers. These shows are often pre-recorded, but may also include live broadcasts. Each type of content (both on-demand and live) may be streamed to media consumers. The media may be streamed to a variety of different devices including laptops, tablets, smart phones and other computing devices.

"In order to monetize this streamed content, media producers typically insert advertisements for viewing by the user. These advertisements may be provided at a national level by national advertisers or at a regional level by regional advertisers. In some cases, the advertisements may be 'linear advertisements', which are embedded in the content stream and do not require special processing for playback. These linear advertisements have many applications, but only allow for minor customization, and that only on a regional level."

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, VerticalNews editors also obtained the inventors' summary information for this patent: "Embodiments described herein are directed to pacing on-demand linear advertisement entries to appear as being live entries, to generating a sequential segment map from a parallel playlist and to consolidating linear ad and main content portions into a single linear chunklist. In one embodiment, a computer system receives video content updates for a portion of live video programming. The live video programming includes both main content entries and on-demand linear advertisement entries that are played according to an advertising schedule. The computer system generates a parallel playlist that includes various parallel playlist entries. Each parallel playlist entry identifies a presentation that is to be played at a specified point on a linear timeline. The presentation includes a main content entry and/or an on-demand advertisement entry.

"The computer system then generates a sequential segment map from the parallel playlist that identifies which parallel playlist entry is to be played at the current point in the linear timeline. The computer system monitors a live position to determine that at least one new portion of main content main content media has become available. The computer system then determines that an on-demand linear advertisement is to be played at the live position and appends one or more corresponding on-demand linear advertisement chunks to a chunklist to replace the main content chunks. As such, the on-demand linear advertisement entries are played in a pseudo-live format as if they were live.

"In another embodiment, a computer system accesses a parallel playlist that includes multiple parallel playlist entries. The parallel playlist entries identify a presentation that is to be played at a specified point on a linear timeline. The parallel playlist entries are ordered in increasing priority. The computer system creates a sequential segment map entry for each parallel playlist entry, where each parallel playlist entry is scheduled to play at a specified time indicated on a linear insertion timestamp for a specified duration. The computer system inserts each sequential map entry into a sequential segment map according to the sequential segment map entry's associated linear insertion timestamp. The computer system then overlays the sequential segment map entries on top of the existing sequential segment map entries in the sequential segment map to determine where overlaps exist between sequential segment map entries, resolves any determined sequential segment map entry overlaps to ensure that a single parallel playlist entry is played at the specified time indicated on the linear insertion timestamp, and sends the sequential segment map to a video player for playback according to the resolved insertion order of the sequential map entries.

"In yet another embodiment, a computer system consolidates linear ad and main content portions into a single linear chunklist. The computer system accesses a media chunk manifest which describes how to download media chunks for playback. The media chunks include main content chunks and/or linear advertisement chunks. The computer system adds media chunks from the media chunk manifests to a chunklist so that main content media chunks are overwritten upon determining that a linear advertisement is to be played at that time. Each chunklist entry is also extended to include its own splice-in and splice-out information. The computer system then determines a splice-in boundary and a splice-out boundary for a linear advertisement that is to be inserted into the chunklist, adds a splice-in boundary marker to the splice-in boundary and a splice-out boundary marker to the splice-out boundary, and generates a single linear chunklist that includes media chunks from multiple different manifests. As such, the single linear chunklist is playable by a media player.

"This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

"Additional features and advantages will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the teachings herein. Features and advantages of embodiments described herein may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. Features of the embodiments described herein will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims."