140 Proof Awarded Patent: Targeting Users Based on Persona Data

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Aug 26, 2014) - 140 Proof, the company that uses social data to select ads on web and mobile based on a user's interests, today announced that it has been granted Patent #8,751,305, "Targeting Users Based on Persona Data," by the United States Patent Office. This patent is fundamental to the operation of a business that uses cues from social activity for targeting ads or content.

The patent covers 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.

140 Proof's initial filing to the Patent Office was made on May 24, 2010. At the time of the filing, the company was already monetizing the interest graph, having launched its first interest-targeted ad product in January. Twitter was still seven months away from launching its first, untargeted ads. Facebook was promoting social graph marketing. Pinterest was one month old.

140 Proof has a strong history of innovation, including the first self-serve social advertising, the first social ads API, and the first social ads for mobile. Since the filing date, 140 Proof has used their methods of persona development across the evolving landscape of available social data, launching the Blended Interest Graph in 2012.

"We have believed for a long time that the most powerful signal of a person's interests can be derived from their public social activity. Who we connect with, what content we share, where we check in, the subjects we talk about -- all these cues and more can tell us how to interpret the individual's persona and understand what sorts of ads, content, products and more will be relevant and interesting to them," said 140 Proof CEO Jon Elvekrog. "The portfolio of patents and pending applications protects our many methods and inventions around using social data to build interest-based personas for ad and content targeting. We've been first out of the gate and will explore every path to generating revenue from our work."

"140 Proof was extremely early to demonstrate the power of social data to identify audiences based on their personas and match them with relevant ads," said Jorey Ramer, founder of mobile ad platform Jumptap and an advisor to the company. Mr. Ramer is the first named inventor on over 70 patents. "This is the Hope Diamond of social advertising patents."