Abstract: Custom personalized advertisements contain variables which identify types of personal information. When an advertisement loads on a user's display, the content provider identifies the user and provides the personal information identified by the variables for this particular user. The variables in the advertisement are then replaced with the personal information before the advertisement is displayed. The substitution of information for variables can occur at the content provider's servers or the information can be transmitted to a remote advertisement server where it is inserted into the advertisement before sending the custom personalized advertisement to the user's browser. If the information is sent to the advertising server it can be cached so that in the future only the user ID needs to be sent to the server to create a personalized advertisement for this particular user.

Abstract: Different colored rectangles are used to identify and categorize each of several faces in a single photograph. For example, red rectangles highlight faces which are unidentified and green rectangles highlight faces which have been identified. Alternatively identification and characterization are indicated via a mouseover block of text. The invention allows for user input to identify selected faces and to tag selected faces as not interested, e.g. color the rectangle grey. The invention has utility in many facial recognition applications. For example, in a security application green rectangles can be used to indicate faces belonging to authorized personnel and blue rectangles can be used to indicate faces belonging to known criminals while red rectangles indicate unidentified faces. In a casino application, green rectangles can be used to indicate faces belonging to valued customers while blue rectangles can be used to indicate faces of known card counters.

Abstract: A social networking system uses facial recognition software to match members. A first member may choose to search for other members who look like the first member or may search for members who look like a third party. The invention is implemented on the internet and allows members to upload personal information as well as photos to be used in match searches. The system also includes all or most of the features of existing internet social networking systems.