Targeting users based on persona data

Abstract

A method of targeted advertisement distribution based on persona data derived from a social network, wherein the social network includes a plurality of content streams, each content stream associated with a user and a user summary. The method includes the steps of receiving an advertisement request from a third party environment with associated content, identifying a content stream that includes a reference to the third party content, identifying a persona based on the user associated with the identified content stream, and serving an advertisement to the third party environment based on the identified persona.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method for advertisement distribution comprising:
 at a server,
 receiving an advertisement request from a third party environment for an unknown user, the third party environment having a different domain than a social network; 
 identifying a reference to the third party environment within a first content stream of the social network; and 
 serving an advertisement to the third party environment for the unknown user based on a user summary associated with the first content stream. 
   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising generating the user summary based on the content stream. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the content stream comprises content generated by a user associated with the user summary. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising determining a persona based on the user summary associated with the identified content stream, wherein serving the advertisement comprises serving the advertisement based on the persona. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein determining the person further comprises:
 identifying a second reference to the third party environment within a second content stream of the social network; and   determining the persona based on the first and second user summaries.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein serving an advertisement comprises serving an advertisement comprising an advertisement summary having a similarity with the persona above a predetermined threshold. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving a second advertisement request from the third party environment for a social network entity; and   serving a second advertisement to the third party environment for the social network entity based on a content stream associated with the social network entity.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein serving a second advertisement to the third party environment for the social network entity based on a content stream associated with the social network entity comprises generating a second user summary based on the content stream associated with the social network entity and serving the advertisement based on the second user summary. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein serving a second advertisement comprises serving a second advertisement comprising an advertisement summary having a similarity with the second user summary above a predetermined threshold. 
     
     
         10 . A method for targeted advertisement distribution, comprising:
 at a server:
 receiving an advertisement request from a third party environment for an accessing entity, the third party environment having a different domain from a social network; 
 in response to the accessing entity being an unknown entity:
 detecting a reference to the third party environment within a first content stream of the social network, the social network comprising a plurality of content streams, each associated with a user summary; and 
 serving an advertisement to the third party environment based on a first user summary associated with the first content stream. 
 
   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein serving an advertisement to the third party environment based on a first user summary associated with the first content stream comprises determining a persona for the unknown entity based on the first user summary. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising:
 detecting a second reference to the third party environment within a second content stream of the social network, the second content stream associated with a second user summary;   wherein determining a persona further comprises determining the persona based on the second user summary.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein determining the persona based on the first and second user summary comprises:
 abstracting attributes of the first and second user summaries; and   generating the persona based on similarities between the first and second user summaries.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the advertisement comprises an advertisement summary, wherein serving the advertisement to the third party environment comprises serving an advertisement to the third party environment based on a similarity between the advertisement summary and the persona. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein detecting a reference to the third party environment within a first content stream of the social network comprises detecting the reference within content generated by a first user associated with the first user summary. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising:
 in response to the accessing entity being a social network entity of the social network:
 identifying a second user summary associated with the social network entity; and 
 serving a second advertisement to the third party environment based on the second user summary. 
   
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein serving the second advertisement to the third party environment based on the second user summary comprises serving an advertisement to the third party environment having a similarity with the second user summary beyond a predetermined threshold. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the reference to the third party environment comprises an explicit reference to the third party environment. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the explicit reference comprises a universal resource identifier linking to the third party environment.