Broadcasters, including wireless broadcasters, often charge for advertisements based on the amount of potential customers that can be reached and/or the demographics of the audience that can be reached. In addition, broadcasters normally charge on a per advertisement basis. Advertisers are often willing to pay more to reach a targeted audience, e.g., an audience satisfying one or more constraints.
In traditional advertising systems such as television and radio there is normally not a tradeoff in terms of the number of advertisements which can be served in a given time period versus the number of users and/or specific audience that can be reached. This is because for such fixed broadcasters, transmission power and/or other transmission constraints such as frequency remain fixed regardless of what is being transmitted.
While radio stations and fixed broadcast sites often generate revenue by transmitting advertisements, it would be desirable if mobile devices, e.g., wireless terminals in an ad-hoc or other type of network, could also generate revenue by transmitting advertisements and charging for such broadcasts. Unfortunately, mobile devices are normally subject to power constraints as a result of being battery powered and/or to limit interference to other devices in the system. The power limitations associated with mobile wireless terminals means that their transmission range tends to be smaller than that of radio or base stations which tend to be powered via fixed power transmission lines. While power constraints tend to limit the range of mobile devices and/or the duration of transmissions, mobile devices are often carried by individuals and end up in locations frequented by other people. As a mobile device comes into proximity with other wireless devices, it may be presented with numerous opportunities to communicate advertisements to a wide variety of other mobile devices users and/or people with a wide range of interests.
Thus, while mobile devices have various drawbacks for use as advertising transmission platforms, they also offer advertising opportunities that might differ from those available through the use of fixed site transmitters such as radio and TV stations.
In view of the above discussion is should be appreciated that there is a need for methods and/or apparatus which would allow mobile devices to be used as advertising platforms. In order to optimize the value of using a mobile device as an advertising platform it would be desirable if an advertiser could specify advertising constraints that the mobile device would have to satisfy, e.g., as part of an advertising service. It would also be desirable if a mobile device could, in some but not necessarily all embodiments control advertising transmission in a manner that was intended to optimize revenue and/or compensation generated from the transmission of advertisements from the mobile device.