SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DISTRIBUTING ADVERTISING AND GATHERING INFORMATION IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORK

摘要

A system and method for inserting and distributing commercial advertising to wireless phone subscribers. The system and method also allows for information gathering from participating subscribers. A subscriber enters a user profile either when initially signing up for service or through an interactive menu on the phone handset (330). Through phone registration messages transmitted as overhead messages within the wireless network (320) the network (320) is roughly able to determine the location of the phone (330). The system transmits advertising messages to the user at call origination based upon the user profile and cell location. The system may use the subscriber location to decide to transmit messages to the user phone that will launch a browser (336) like application within the phone (330). The browser (336) would then display textual or graphical advertisements on the handset display. Additionally, the system could initiate browser pop-up polling queries in which the user could offer responses. The phone (330) would use packetized data transmission to transmit the responses back to the base station (320). The system would then accumulate and process the various user responses. The system could also use location information to selectively transmit electronic coupon offers to local subscribers.