Abstract: A method of analyzing documents or relationships between documents includes receiving a notification of an available metadata document containing information about one or more network-accessible documents, obtaining a document format indicator associated with the metadata document, selecting a document crawler using the document format indicator, and crawling at least some of the network-accessible documents using the selected document crawler.

Abstract: A method of analyzing documents or relationships between documents includes receiving a notification of an available metadata document containing information about one or more network-accessible documents, obtaining a document format indicator associated with the metadata document, selecting a document crawler using the document format indicator, and crawling at least some of the network-accessible documents using the selected document crawler.

Abstract: Advertisements that facilitate telephonic communications between users and advertisers, and which avoid perceived problems or limitations of PPC and CTC offerings, are described. These advertisements may include offer information used to score the ad and/or to assess a charge to the advertiser in the event of a call conversion.

Abstract: A method of analyzing documents or relationships between documents includes receiving a notification of an available metadata document containing information about one or more network-accessible documents, obtaining a document format indicator associated with the metadata document, selecting a document crawler using the document format indicator, and crawling at least some of the network-accessible documents using the selected document crawler.

Abstract: Ads eligible to be served with a document (for example, because they are relevant to the document) may each be scored using a price parameter associated with the ad and an indication of relevancy of the ad to the document. The indication of relevancy of the ad to the document may be based on an ordinal ranking of a relevancy criteria of the document used to select the ad, and/or a value of a relevancy criteria of the document used to select the ad. The eligible ads may be determined by obtaining relevancy criteria for the document and selecting ads using at least some of the obtained relevancy criteria. The ads may be selected, and perhaps filtered, in a distributed manner.

Abstract: Advertisers are permitted to put targeted ads on page on the web (or some other document of any media type). The present invention may do so by (i) obtaining content that includes available spots for ads, (ii) determining ads relevant to content, and/or (iii) combining content with ads determined to be relevant to the content.

Abstract: Advertisers are permitted to put targeted ads on page on the web (or some other document of any media type). The present invention may do so by (i) obtaining content that includes available spots for ads, (ii) determining ads relevant to content, and/or (iii) combining content with ads determined to be relevant to the content.

Abstract: An asynchronous and opportunistically available scheme under which a user's e-mail (or a document including e-mail content) is rendered immediately, and later updated with appropriate advertisements if and when they became available, is described. This scheme ensures that the availability of advertisements will not adversely affect the rendering of the e-mail content. For example, a Web-based e-mail server may facilitate the serving of advertisements with e-mail by (a) accepting a request for a document including e-mail, (b) generating a request identifier, (c) serving the requested document in association with the request identifier, and (d) obtaining at least one ad relevant to content of the e-mail. The Web-based e-mail server may further (e) store the obtained ad(s), (f) accept an ad request, (g) read the stored ad(s) using information from the ad request, and (h) serve the ad(s).

Abstract: A content owner partner (e.g., a Website/Web page publisher) can easily block entire broad or narrow categories of ads, and can specify objectionable ad content or targeting. Concepts may be associated with a property and ads related to those concepts may be blocked for the given property. Further, terms may be associated with a property and ads including any of the terms may be blocked for the given property.

Abstract: A content-targeting ad system is provided with a user behavior (e.g., selection (e.g., click), conversion, etc.) feedback mechanism. The performance of individual ads, or groups of ads, may be tracked on a per document (e.g. per URL) and/or on a per host (e.g. per Website) basis. The performance of ad targeting functions may also be tracked on a per document, and/or per host basis. Such user behavior feedback data may be processed (e.g., aggregated) into useful data structures. Such user behavior feedback data (raw or processed) may then be used in a content-targeting ad system to improve ad quality, improve user experience, and/or maximize revenue.

Abstract: A client-side application (such as a browser, a browser plug-in, a browser toolbar plug-in, etc. on an end user's computer) is used to support the serving of content-relevant ads to the client device. The client-side application may provide such support by sending document information (such as a document identifier, document content, content relevance information, etc.) to a content ad server. The client-side application may also be used to combine content of the document and the content-relevant ads. For example, the client-side application may combine content of the document and the ads in a window (e.g., in a browser window), may provide the ads in a window above, below, adjacent to a document window, may provide the ads in “chrome” of the browser, etc.

Abstract: Advertisers are permitted to put targeted ads on page on the web (or some other document of any media type). The present invention may do so by (i) obtaining content that includes available spots for ads, (ii) determining ads relevant to content, and/or (iii) combining content with ads determined to be relevant to the content.

Abstract: A method of determining a relationship between a search item provided by a user and a plurality of objective items, wherein each objective item in the plurality includes a plurality of objective item properties and the search item includes one or more search item properties, the method comprising: grouping a subset of objective items based on an objective relationship between one or more of the plurality of objective item properties and the one or more search item properties; modifying the subset based on a subjective relationship, wherein the subjective relationship indicates an association between objective items in the subset and the search item, thereby calculating an affinity value between each objective item in the subset and the search item; and ranking the objective items in the modified subset based on the affinity value calculated.

Abstract: The invention relates to a dynamic channel allocation system for a mobile communication system wherein mobile units communicate with the base station on allotted channels. The channel allocations are determined according to a framework of network flows including flow paths with nodes representing active mobile units, base stations and channels used for communication between active mobile units and their respective base stations. A new call from a mobile unit is added by finding the shortest available augmenting path for the added unit. The edges between nodes can include cost and capacity factors which can be used to determine desirable reconfigurations for the network.

Abstract: A network data stream synchronization method and system are disclosed. Operating delay and loss parameters are accepted and a data stream buffer is initialized. The network delay experienced by a data packet is determined and a buffer delay is imposed to provide a fixed end-to-end delay. Packets arriving too late to be played within the fixed end-to-end delay are discarded. Network delay models may be updated and clock drifts may be detected and compensated for using historical buffer data.