A technique for implementing in a networked client-server environment,
e.g., the Internet, network-distributed advertising in which
advertisements are downloaded, from an advertising server to a browser
executing at a client computer, in a manner transparent to a user situated
at the browser, and subsequently displayed, by that browser on an
interstitial basis, in response to a click-stream generated by the user to
move from one web page to the next. Specifically, an HTML advertising tag
is embedded into a referring web page. This tag contains two components.
One component effectively downloads, from an distribution web server and
to an extent necessary, and then persistently instantiates an agent at the
client browser. This agent "politely" and transparently downloads
advertising files (media and where necessary player files), originating
from an ad management system residing on a third-party advertising web
server, for a given advertisement into browser cache and subsequently
plays those media files through the browser on an interstitial basis and
in response to a user click-stream. The other component is a reference, in
terms of a web address, of the advertising management system. This latter
reference totally "decouples" advertising content from a web page such
that a web page, rather than embedding actual advertising content within
the page itself, merely includes an advertising tag that refers, via a
URL, to a specific ad management system rather than to a particular
advertisement or its content. The ad management system selects the given
advertisement that is to be downloaded, rather than having that selection
or its content being embedded in the web content page.
