Scalable Native In-Stream Advertising for Mobile Applications and Websites

Abstract

A method for processing ads involves traversing an ad view hierarchy to obtain ad view information for a device, providing the ad view information to an ad server, sending, by the device, an ad request to the ad server, receiving, in response to the ad request, an ad. and displaying the ad on the device.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for processing ads, comprising:
 traversing an ad view hierarchy to obtain ad view information for a device;   providing the ad view information to an ad server;   sending, by the device, an ad request to the ad server;   receiving, in response to the ad request, an ad; and   displaying the ad on the device.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the ad view information for the device is obtained by one selected from a group consisting of a hypertext mark-up language (HTML) tag in a HTML file associated with a web page displayed on the device and a software development kit executing on the device. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the ad view hierarchy comprises a root view and a plurality of child views, wherein at least one of the plurality of child views is associated at least one selected from a group consisting of an image and text. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the device is a mobile device, and wherein the ad view information is associated with a native advertisement in a content stream displayed on an application executing on the mobile device. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising serializing, prior to the providing, the ad view information. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the providing the ad view information and the send the ad request is at substantially the same time. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising sending additional information to the ad server, the additional information associated with one or more of a device size of the device, a display resolution of the device, a device type of the device, an operating system of the device, an operating system version of the device, a processor of the device, memory of the device, or hard disk space of the device. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , the displaying further comprising displaying the ad as a native advertisement within a content stream displayed on an application executing on the mobile device. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising refreshing an advertisement cache of the device to include the received ad. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the device is a mobile device, wherein the ad view information is associated with a native advertisement in a content stream displayed on an application executing on the mobile device, wherein the ad is a first ad, further comprising:
 sending, by the ad server to a publisher device, the ad view information;   generating and displaying, at the publisher device, a set of previews of a second ad based on the ad view information.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the ad view information includes an indication of ad location of the ad in a content stream of an application executing on the device, image location associated with an image of the ad, image width associated with the image of the ad, image height associated with the image of the ad, text location associated with a text of the ad, text width associated with the text of the ad, and text height associated with the text of the ad. 
     
     
         12 . A device that includes functionality to:
 traverse an ad view hierarchy to obtain ad view information for the device;   provide the ad view information to an ad server;   send an ad request to the ad server;   receive, in response to the ad request, an ad; and   display the ad.   
     
     
         13 . The device of  claim 12 , wherein the device comprises an application, wherein the application is associated with a software development kit (SDK), and wherein traversing the ad view hierarchy is performed by the SDK. 
     
     
         14 . The device of  claim 12 , wherein the ad view hierarchy comprises a root view and a plurality of child views, wherein at least of the plurality of child views is associated at least one selected from a group consisting of an image and text. 
     
     
         15 . The device of  claim 12 , wherein the ad view information includes an indication of ad location of the ad in a content stream of an application executing on the device, image location associated with an image of the ad, image width associated with the image of the ad, image height associated with the image of the ad, text location associated with a text of the ad, text width associated with the text of the ad, and text height associated with the text of the ad. 
     
     
         16 . The device of  claim 12 , wherein the device is a mobile device, and wherein the ad view information is associated with a native advertisement in a content stream displayed on an application executing on the mobile device. 
     
     
         17 . The device of  claim 12 , wherein the device includes additional functionality to serialize, prior to the providing, the ad view information. 
     
     
         18 . The device of  claim 12 , wherein the device includes additional functionality to provide the ad view information and send the ad request at substantially the same time. 
     
     
         19 . The device of  claim 12 , wherein the device includes additional functionality to send additional information to the ad server, the additional information associated with one or more of a device size of the device, a display resolution of the device, a device type of the device, an operating system of the device, an operating system version of the device, a processor of the device, memory of the device, or hard disk space of the device. 
     
     
         20 . The device of  claim 12 , wherein the device includes additional functionality to display the ad as a native advertisement within a content stream displayed on an application executing on the device. 
     
     
         21 . The device of  claim 12 , wherein the device includes additional functionality to refresh an advertisement cache of the device to include the received ad.