METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SCHEDULING THE PRESENTATION OF MESSAGES TO COMPUTER USERS

摘要

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for scheduling the presentation of a continuously-changing display (702) to computer users, and is particularly well-suited for use in an advertisement-supported e-mail service. An advertisement display scheduler (700) resident on a user's computer receives advertisements from a server system over a network. Upon receipt, the advertisement display scheduler (700) determines the priority of the advertisement (MSG01 .... MSGnn) and assigns it to one of a plurality of prioritized advertisement queues (Qo .... Qn). Each queue is sorted (701) according to predetermined scheduling criteria so that advertisements deemed "more important" are presented to a user first. The advertisement display scheduler (700) logs statistical information relating to the presentation of advertisements for use in updating the scheduling criteria, and makes such statistical information available to the server system.