AU2007100654A4

AU2007100654A4 - Systems & methods for providing information

Info

Publication number: AU2007100654A4
Application number: AU2007100654A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Brian Keayes
Original assignee: BUILD RIGHT ONLINE Pty Ltd
Current assignee: BUILD RIGHT ONLINE Pty Ltd
Priority date: 2007-07-18
Filing date: 2007-07-18
Publication date: 2007-08-16
Anticipated expiration: 2015-07-18

Description

AUSTRALIA

PATENTS ACT 1990 PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION FOR THE INVENTION ENTITLED: SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROVIDING INFORMATION The invention is described in the following statement: IP Australia 1 8 JUL 2007

BRIS

(.i SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROVIDING INFORMATION 00 Described herein are systems and methods for providing information. In overview, some embodiments focus on an approach whereby marketing information is delivered by t way of animations in a web page. Some of the underlying rationales for the present 0 embodiments, at least to some extent, arise from an appreciation that a web page has only a limited amount of time in which to capture the attention of a viewer. This limited amount of time is often insufficient to allow for the loading of rich content that is specifically intended to engage the viewer.

One embodiment provides a computer-readable carrier medium carrying a set of instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to carry out a method for providing an on-screen presentation, the method including the steps of: receiving from a client terminal a request to load a page in a browser application; commencing upload to the client terminal of first data indicative of a preliminary animation, wherein upon a threshold portion of the first data being uploaded to the browser application display in the page of the preliminary animation is commenced at the client terminal; commencing upload to the client terminal of second data indicative of a rich content animation, wherein upon a threshold portion of the second data being uploaded to the browser application display in the page of the preliminary animation is ceased and display of the rich content animation is commenced at the client terminal.

One embodiment provides a carrier medium wherein the page included a container for at least partially containing the preliminary animation and subsequently the rich content animation.

One embodiment provides a carrier medium wherein the method includes the step of commencing upload to the client terminal of third data indicative of background animation, wherein display of the background animation is commenced at the client terminal at a predefined point in time relevant to the commencement of the display of the rich content 3 N animation such that the background animation is synchronously displayed with respect to the rich content animation.

0 One embodiment provides a carrier medium wherein the rich content animation includes a Flash representation of an animate character.

One embodiment provides a carrier medium wherein the preliminary animation includes a Flash representation of a slideshow presentation.

Another embodiment provides computer-readable carrier medium carrying a set of instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to carry out a method for providing an on-screen presentation, the method including the steps of: at a client terminal, providing to a central server a request to load a page in a browser application; commencing download to the client terminal of first data indicative of a preliminary animation, wherein upon a threshold portion of the first data being uploaded to the browser application display in the page of the preliminary animation is commenced at the client terminal; commencing download to the client terminal of second data indicative of a rich content animation, wherein upon a threshold portion of the second data being uploaded to the browser application display in the page of the preliminary animation is ceased and display of the rich content animation is commenced at the client terminal.

for the presentation, where in the browser application is responsive to loading of the first data for displaying the container; [0001] [0002] The general approach of embodiments described herein is to display to a viewer of a web page a basic preliminary animation, this animation being "basic" in the sense that it requires only a small amount of resources to load and display. For example, displaying the preliminary animation might involve the downloading of about (30 kilobytes for example) of data to a client web browser, which should take only a matter so seconds even with a relatively slow internet connection. One or more rich content 4 t"objects are downloaded and loaded into memory whilst this preliminary animation is displayed. The display of rich content objects might involve the downloading of about oO (1 to 3 megabytes for example) of data to the client web browser. Once the or each of the rich content objects are loaded (or partially loaded in the case of a buffered stream) and ready for display, the preliminary animation is ended and one or more of the rich t content objects displayed.

S [0003] Embodiments will now be described by reference to FIG. 1, which illustrates a method 100 for providing information, FIG. 2, which illustrates various hardware Scomponents 201 relevant to the method of FIG. I, and FIG. 3, which illustrates an exemplary web page 301.

[0004] Method 101 commences at step 101, which is essentially defined by a user of a client terminal 210 navigating to web page 301 by way of a web browser application 300. In overview, a web server 202 delivers information via a website 203, this website including a plurality of web pages. Users access website 203 over the Internet by way of client terminals 204, which in various embodiments include the likes of personal computers, PDAs, cellular telephones, gaming consoles, and other Internet enabled devices.

[0005] Server 202, as illustrated, includes a processor 205 coupled to a memory module 206 and a communications interface 207, such as an internet connection, modem, Ethernet port, serial port, or the like. In other embodiments distributed resources are used. For example, in one embodiment server 202 includes a plurality of distributed servers having respective storage, processing and communications resources. Memory module 206 includes software instructions 208, which are executable on processor 205.

[0006] Server 202 is coupled to a database 210, which in some embodiments includes a plurality of distributed storage locations. In further embodiments the database leverages memory module 206. Database 210 maintains a data indicative of one or more web pages for delivery over the Internet by way of website 203, such as website 301.

t- [0007] The term "website" should be read broadly to cover substantially any source of information accessible over the Internet or another communications network (such as SWAP, LAN or WLAN) via a browser application running on a client terminal. In some embodiments, a website is a source of information made available by a server and accessible over the Internet by a web-browser application running on a client terminal.

t The web-browser application downloads code, such as HTML code, from the server.

This code is executable through the web-browser on the client terminal for providing a Sgraphical and often interactive representation of the website on the client terminal. By way of the web-browser application, a user of the client terminal is able to navigate between and throughout various web pages provided by the website, and access various functionalities that are provided.

[0008] Client terminals 204 include exemplary client terminal 210. Terminal 210 includes a processor 211 coupled to a memory module 212 and a communications interface 211, such as an internet connection, modem, Ethernet port, serial port, or the like. In other embodiments distributed resources are used. For example, in one embodiment server 202 includes a plurality of distributed servers having respective storage, processing and communications resources. Memory module 212 includes software instructions 213, which are executable on processor 211. These software instructions allow terminal 210 to provide web browser application 300, schematically illustrated in FIG. 3 and assigned reverence numeral 301, and maintain data indicative of web page 203 that is downloaded over the Internet.

[0009] Following step 101, various aspects of data indicative of web page 301 are downloaded over the Internet to client terminal 210. These include a rich content animation, background animation, and preliminary animation, the respective loading of these commencing at steps 102 to 104 respectively. Although in FIG. 1 these steps are shown as being simultaneous, in some embodiments they are staggered.

[0010] Step 105 includes providing the preliminary animation. In the present embodiment, web page 301 includes a display area 302 for containing the preliminary animation, which is basis in the sense considered above. This preliminary animation optionally takes the form ofa slideshow defined by a plurality of still images displayed sequentially at regular intervals. It will be appreciated that, given the basic nature of the preliminary animation, it is displayed to the viewer of web page 301 (the user of terminal 210) shortly after navigating to web page 301. Movement in display area 302 00 resulting from the preliminary animation is indented to grasp the viewer's attention in the initial moments following navigation to web page 301.

[0011] Step 106 includes determining whether the rich content is ready for display. In Sthe present embodiment it is assumed that the background animation, which is basic by comparison to the rich content, will have completed loading prior to the rich content.

OHowever, in some cases there is an additional check performed at step 106 to verify that to be the case.

[0012] In the event that the rich content is not ready for display, the preliminary animation continues to be displayed. In the event that the rich content is ready for display, the method progresses to step 107.

[0013] In some embodiments a component of web page 301 is responsive to the completion of rich content download (or buffer download) for providing a signal to progress to step 107. That is, an ongoing check as shown in step 106 is by no means a requirement in all embodiments.

[0014] Step 107 includes commencing simultaneous display of the rich content and the background animation. In the present embodiment, the rich content takes the form of an animated narration character 305, which is overlaid on display are 302. The background animation takes the form of a presentation 304 (such as a slideshow) contained in display area 302. These are preferably designed by reference to one another, such that substantially simultaneous commencement of the two animations at step 107 essentially allows character 205 to narrate presentation 304.

[0015] It will be understood that the steps of methods discussed are performed in one embodiment by an appropriate processor (or processors) of a processing computer) system executing instructions (computer-readable code) stored in storage.

For example, method 100 is performable in whole or in part on the basis of software instructions 108 and/or software instructions 213.

[0016] The term "processor" may refer to any device or portion of a device that processes electronic data, from registers and/or memory to transform that 0electronic data into other electronic data that, may be stored in registers and/or memory. A "computer" or a "computing machine" or a "computing platform" may include one or more processors. Note that while some diagrams only show a single processor and a single memory that carries the computer-readable code (software instructions), those in the art will understand that many of the components described above are included, but not explicitly shown or described in order not to obscure the inventive aspect. For example, while only a single "machine" is illustrated, the term "machine" shall also be taken to include any collection of machines that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

In some embodiments, a Flash representation of an animate character (such as a humanlike character) is created, optionally using tools and technologies developed by a third party such as those made available by SitePal (www.sitepal.com). By using a suitable API, to background slides are synchronized to the streaming audio and the character.

By having slides load in the first instance with a separate short audio file, there is an opportunity to provide visual and audio advertising that distracts the viewer from the time it is taking for the main presentation to load. This reduces the chance that the viewer will become impatient and move to another site. Advantageously, it also enables a smoother stream as less data is being pulled down at one time.

Claims

2. A carrier medium according to claim I wherein the page included a container for at least partially containing the preliminary animation and subsequently the rich content animation.
3. A carrier medium according to claim I wherein the method includes the step of commencing upload to the client terminal of third data indicative of background animation, wherein display of the background animation is commenced at the client terminal at a predefined point in time relevant to the commencement of the display of the rich content animation such that the background animation is synchronously displayed with respect to the rich content animation.
4. A carrier medium according to claim 1 wherein the rich content animation includes a Flash representation of an animate character. A carrier medium according to claim 1 wherein the preliminary animation includes a Flash representation of a slideshow presentation. 9 O
6. A computer-readable carrier medium carrying a set of instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to carry out a 0method for providing an on-screen presentation, the method including the steps of: at a client terminal, providing to a central server a request to load a page in a browser application; commencing download to the client terminal of first data indicative of a preliminary animation, wherein upon a threshold portion of the first data being uploaded to the browser application display in the page of the preliminary animation is commenced at the client terminal; commencing download to the client terminal of second data indicative of a rich content animation, wherein upon a threshold portion of the second data being uploaded to the browser application display in the page of the preliminary animation is ceased and display of the rich content animation is commenced at the client terminal.