Methods for serving interactive content to a user

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10832730-B2
Application number	US-201816177291-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 31, 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 interactive advertising content to a user, the method comprising:
loading a static image comprising advertising content into an image player inserted into an electronic document rendered within a window by a mobile computing device associated with the user, the image player defining a first height less than a second height of the window;
at the image player:
in response to a first scroll event that moves the image player to a first vertical position within the window, inserting a first region of the static image file into the image player, the first region corresponding to a first frame in the subset of frames;
in response to the image player remaining within a first range of vertical positions within the window, the first vertical position within the first range of vertical positions, maintaining the first region of the static image file rendered within the image player, the first region of the static image file corresponding to vertical positions within the first range of vertical positions; and
in response to a second scroll event that moves the image player to a second vertical position within the window, the second vertical position falling within a second range of vertical positions outside of the first range of vertical positions, inserting a second region of the static image file into the image player in replacement of the first region of the static image file, the second region corresponding to a second frame succeeding the first frame in the subset of frames and corresponding to vertical positions within the second range of vertical positions; and

based on the first scroll event and the second scroll event, calculating an engagement score of the user interacting with the image player at the mobile computing device while the image player is rendered within the window.

2. The method of claim 1 :
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 a sequence of regions of the static image file at a rate proportional to a speed of the second scroll event, the sequence of regions of the static image file corresponding to a sequence of vertical positions of the image player within the window; and
rendering regions of the static image file bounded by the crop area.

3. The method of claim 1 :
further comprising, at the mobile computing device:
loading the static image file and the image player onto the mobile computing device; and
assigning a range of vertical positions of the image player within the window to each discrete region in the static image file;

wherein inserting the first region into the image player comprises inserting the first region of the static image file into the image player in response to relocation of the image player into view within the window during the first scroll event;
wherein inserting the second region of the static image file into the image player comprises replacing the first region with the second region in the image player in response to entry of the image player into the second range of vertical positions in the window responsive to the second scroll event, the second range of vertical positions distinct from the first range of vertical positions, defined vertically above the first range of vertical positions, and including the second vertical position.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising rendering a portion of the first region and a portion of the second region within the image player in response to the image player occupying an intermediate position between the first vertical position and the second range of vertical positions during the second scroll event.

5. The method of claim 1 :
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 bounded by the crop area in the image player; and

wherein inserting the second region of the static image file into the image player comprises, in response to relocation of the image player toward the second vertical position within the window during the second scroll event:
translating the crop area over a sequence of regions of the static image file at a rate proportional to a speed of the second scroll event, the sequence of regions corresponding to a sequence of vertical positions of the image player within the window; and
rendering regions of the static image file bounded by the crop area.

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

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein calculating the engagement score for the user interacting with the image player comprises calculating the engagement score for the user based on a number of scroll direction changes recorded while the image player is rendered within the window.

8. The method of claim 1 :
wherein inserting the second region into the image player comprises inserting the second region, in replacement of the first region, into the image player in response to a scroll-down event that relocates the image player upward from the first vertical position to the second vertical position within the window; and
further comprising inserting the first region, in replacement of the second region, into the image player in response to a scroll-up event that relocates the image player downward from the second vertical position to a third vertical position within the first range of vertical positions.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, at the image player:
accessing the second height of the window;
accessing the first height of the image player; and
assigning ranges of vertical positions within the height of the window to regions of the static image file based on the height of the image player, each region of the static image file corresponding to a unique frame in the subset of frames.

10. A method for serving interactive advertising content to a user, the method comprising:
at an image player inserted into an electronic document rendered within a window by a mobile computing device associated with the user, the image player defining a first height less than a second height of the window:
accessing visual advertising content;
in response to a scroll event that moves the image player to a first vertical position within the window, inserting a first frame in the visual advertising content into the image player;
in response to the image player remaining within a first range of vertical positions during the scroll event, the first range of vertical positions including the first vertical position, maintaining the first frame within the image player, the first frame corresponding to the first range of vertical positions within the window;
in response to relocation of the image player to a second vertical position within the window during the scroll event, the second vertical position falling within a second range of vertical positions outside the first range of vertical positions, inserting a second frame into the image player, the second frame succeeding the first frame in the visual advertising content, the second frame corresponding to the second range of vertical positions within the window; and

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Assignees

• Yieldmo Inc
• Yielmo 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

• G06F3/04812

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

• H04L67/02

  based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP] · CPC title

• H04N21/431

  Generation of visual interfaces {for content selection or interaction}; Content or additional data rendering · CPC title