Background advertising system

Abstract

An advertisement system and method are provided for inserting into an end user communication message a background reference to an advertisement. In some embodiments, the background reference causes an advertisement image to be tiled, or watermarked, across an end user screen behind the text of an e-mail message or public posting. A message server inserts the background reference after receiving a message originally sent from an end user originator and before sending the message to be delivered to an end user recipient. When necessary, the message server will convert at least a portion of the message into a proper format, such as HTML, before inserting the background reference to an advertisement, which is preferably selected in accordance with end user recipient demographic information and/or ad exposure statistics. The advertisement itself, often a graphical file, is preferably not transmitted with the message, but is typically stored at the message server or other location remote from the end user recipient. Preferably, the message server maintains and refer to records on each end user recipient to allow for selective enablement of background reference insertion and overwriting based upon end user preferences. According to various “non-web” example embodiments, the message server transmits an SMTP, POP3 or NNTP message with an HTML portion for a respective HTML-compatible client. In other “web-based” example embodiments, the message server transmits the entire message in HTML to be used as a stand-alone web page or as a portion of a larger page employing frames or tables.

We claim:  
     
         1 . An advertising method for inserting a background reference to a stored advertisement into an end user communication message in a communications network, said method comprising the steps of: 
 receiving an end user communication message at a first site on a communications network;    inserting into said end user communication message a background reference to a stored advertisement; and    transmitting said end user communication message with said background reference to a second site on the communications network.    
     
     
         2 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said background reference is operative for enabling background tiling of said advertisement at said second site.  
     
     
         3 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said end user communication message includes an Internet e-mail message.  
     
     
         4 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said end user communication message includes a public posting.  
     
     
         5 . The method as claimed in claim l, further comprising a step of transforming said end user communication message into hypertext markup language (HTML), and wherein said transmitting step includes transmitting said end user communication message in a web-based e-mail system to a web browser at said second site.  
     
     
         6 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said transmitting step includes transmitting said end user communication message in a post office protocol (POP) format.  
     
     
         7 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said inserting step includes selecting the stored advertisement based on user demographic information.  
     
     
         8 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said inserting step includes selecting the stored advertisement based on advertisement exposure for a pool of advertisers.  
     
     
         9 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said inserting step includes inserting a hypertext markup language (HTML) background reference tag into the end user communication message.  
     
     
         10 . The method as claimed in claim l, wherein said stored advertisement is stored at the first site.  
     
     
         11 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said stored advertisement is stored at a site remote from said second site, wherein said background reference includes a file address remote from said second site.  
     
     
         12 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said stored advertisement is a graphical image file.  
     
     
         13 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said inserting step includes: 
 determining whether said end user communication message is in a format capable of operatively accepting said background reference; and    converting said end user communication message into a format capable of operatively accepting said background reference responsive to determining that said message is not in a format capable of operatively accepting said background reference.    
     
     
         14 . The method as claimed in  claim 13 , wherein said determining step includes a step of determining whether said end user communication message is in multipurpose Internet mail extensions (MIME) format.  
     
     
         15 . The method as claimed in  claim 13 , wherein said converting step includes a step of converting said end user communication message into multipurpose Internet mail extensions (MIME) format.  
     
     
         16 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , further comprising the steps of: 
 first determining whether said end user communication message in said receiving step is in a format capable of operatively accepting a background reference;    second determining whether said end user communication message contains a standard generalized markup language (SGML) part responsive to determining that said end user communication message is in a format capable of operatively accepting a background reference in said first determining step; and    adding an SGML part to said end user communication message responsive to determining that said end user communication message does not contain an SGML part;    
     
     
         17 . The method as claimed in  claim 16 , wherein said SGML part includes hypertext markup language (HTML).  
     
     
         18 . The method as claimed in  claim 16 , further comprising the steps of: 
 third determining whether said end user communication message already contains a background reference responsive to determining that said end user communication message is in a format capable of operatively accepting a background reference in said second determining step; and    inserting a background reference responsive to determining that said end user communication message does not contain a background reference in said third determining step.    
     
     
         19 . The method as claimed in  claim 18 , further comprising the steps of: 
 fourth determining whether a configuration enables an existing background reference to be overwritten responsive to determining in said third determining step that said end user communication message already contains a background reference; and    overwriting a background reference responsive to determining in said fourth determining step that the configuration enables the existing background reference to be overwritten.    
     
     
         20 . The method as claimed in  claim 15 , further comprising a step of adding an SGML part to said end user communication message converted into MIME format.