Methods for serving interactive content to a user

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10832729-B2
Application number	US-201815937062-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 27, 2018
Priority date	Oct 25, 2014
Publication date	Nov 10, 2020
Grant date	Nov 10, 2020

Abstract

One variation of a method for serving interactive content to a user includes, at a visual element inserted into a document accessed by a computing device: loading a first frame from a digital video; in response to a scroll-down event that moves the visual element upward from a bottom of a window rendered on the computing device toward a top of the window, seeking from the first frame through a subset of frames in the digital video in a first direction at a rate corresponding to a scroll rate of the scroll-down event, the subset of frames spanning a duration of the digital video corresponding to a length of the scroll-down event; and, in response to termination of the scroll-down event with the visual element remaining in view within the window, playing the digital video forward from a last frame in the subset of frames in the digital video.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for serving an interactive advertisement to a user, the method comprising:
loading an image file into an image player inserted at a set position within an electronic document rendered within a window by a mobile computing device accessed by the user, the image file comprising a set of frames comprising advertising content distinct from content of the electronic document;
at the image player:
in response to a first scroll event within the electronic document that moves the image player within the window from an initial vertical position relative the window to a first vertical position within the window, rendering a first frame, in the set of frames, the image player;
in response to a second scroll event within the electronic document that moves the image player within the window a first distance greater than a threshold distance from the first vertical position to a second vertical position within the window:
animating a transition from the first frame to a second frame, in the set of frames, within the image player during the second scroll event; and
rendering the second frame, in the set of frames, within the image player; and

in response to a third scroll event within the electronic document that moves the image player within the window a second distance greater than the threshold distance, from the second vertical position to a third vertical position below the second vertical position:
animating a transition from the second frame to the first frame within the image player during the third scroll event; and
rendering the first frame within the image player; and

calculating an engagement metric for the user interacting with the image player based on characteristics of scroll events occurring at the mobile computing device while the image player is rendered within the window.

2. The method of claim 1 :
wherein rendering the second frame of the image file in replacement of the first frame within the image player comprises indexing from the first frame to the second frame, the second frame succeeding the first frame in the image file, in response to the second scroll event that moves the image player the first distance from the first vertical position to the second vertical position above the first vertical position within the window; and
wherein rendering the first frame of the image file within the image player in response to the third scroll event comprises indexing from the second frame to the first frame, the second frame succeeding the first frame in the image file, in response to the second scroll event that moves the image player from the second vertical position to the third vertical position below the second vertical position within the window.

3. The method of claim 1 :
further comprising, at a computer system affiliated with an advertising platform, compiling the set of frames into the image file, comprising a static image file;
wherein rendering the first frame within the image player comprises inserting a first region of the static image file into the image player, the first region corresponding to the first frame in the set of frames; and
wherein rendering the second frame within the image player comprises inserting a second region of the static image file into the image player, the second region corresponding to the second frame in the set of frames.

4. The method of claim 3 :
wherein inserting the first region of the static image file into the image player comprises:
locating a crop area over the first region of the static image file; and
rendering the first region of the static image file within the crop area in the image player; and

wherein inserting the second region of the static image file into the image player comprises:
indexing the crop area over discrete regions of the static image file at a rate proportional to a speed of the second scroll event, each discrete region corresponding to a frame in the set of frames; and
rendering discrete regions of the static image file, bounded by the crop area, within the image player.

5. The method of claim 4 :
wherein indexing the crop area over discrete regions of the static image file comprises defining a width of the crop area corresponding to a width of a frame in the static image file; and
wherein rendering discrete regions of the static image file bounded by the crop area within the image player comprises, in response to indexing the crop area over discrete regions of the static image file corresponding to frames in the set of frames, rendering discrete regions of the static image file bounded by the crop area.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein animating the transition between the first frame and the second frame comprises animating the transition at a transition rate corresponding to a rate of the second scroll event.

7. The method of claim 1 :
resizing the image player, at a locked aspect ratio, to fill one of the height and the width of the image player rendered within the window;
segmenting a height of the window less a height of the image player into a number of discrete vertical position ranges equal to the number of frames in the set of frames; and
assigning one unique vertical position of the image player within the window to each frame of the set of frames.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, rendering a portion of the first frame and a portion of the second frame within the image player in response to a fourth scroll event that moves the image player within the window by a third distance less than the threshold distance and greater than a minimum distance.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein calculating the engagement metric for the user interacting with the image player comprises calculating the engagement metric based on a number of scroll events occurring while the image player is rendered within the window.

10. The method of claim 1 :
further comprising, at a computer system affiliated with an advertising platform:
accessing a digital video comprising digital advertising content;
selecting the set of frames from the digital video; and
compiling the set of frames into the image file; and

wherein selecting the set of frames from the digital video comprises selecting a predefined number of frames, from the digital video, corresponding to one second of playback of the digital video at a standard video frame rate.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein selecting the predefined number of frames from the digital video comprises selecting the predefined number of frames distributed at uniform intervals across a segment of the digital video between two markers manually set along the digital video at the computer system.

12. A method for serving an interactive advertisement to a user, the method comprising:
at a computer system affiliated with an advertising platform:
accessing a set of frames comprising digital advertising content; and
compiling the set of frames into a container;

at an image player inserted at a set position into an electronic document rendered within a window by a mobile computing device distinct from the computer system, the electronic document distinct from advertising content in the container:
rendering a first frame, in the container, within the image player;
in response to a first scroll event within the electronic document that moves the image player a first distance in a first direction within the window, the first distance exceeding a threshold distance;
animating a transition from the first frame to a second frame, in the container, within the image player; and
replacing the first frame with the second frame within the image player; and

in response to a second scroll event within the elec

Assignees

• Yieldmo Inc

Inventors

• Doherty Connor Francis
• Goligorsky David Michael
• Sprockett Shawn
• Wu Eric (Ge)
• Bao Yiming
• Silvernight Firecrow
• Sebag David

Classifications

• G11B27/005 Primary

  Reproducing at a different information rate from the information rate of recording (for television signals H04N5/783) · CPC title

• G06F40/143 Primary

  Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD] · CPC title

• H04N21/812

  involving advertisement data (advertising per se G06Q30/02) · CPC title

• G06F3/04812

  Interaction techniques based on cursor appearance or behaviour, e.g. being affected by the presence of displayed objects · CPC title

• G11B27/031

  Electronic editing of digitised analogue information signals, e.g. audio or video signals · CPC title