BUSINESS BLOGS
BUSINESS BLOGS
category: business
27 Aug 2007

Google has filed patents for an application titled “User Distributed Search Results.”

According to Nick Carr:

Google researchers describe the concept of “a universal distributed search system [that] allows users to find and distribute search results (possibly including advertisements) to those with whom they communicate. The search results can be easily distributed by the user via a simple interface that allows the search results to be easily added to the user’s content.” Google has seen that people often put links or other references to related content into emails and other messages they send to friends and acquaintances. The tool described in the patent makes the discovery and inclusion of such content simpler and faster. In essence, it establishes a new way to syndicate Google search results, from friend to friend.

In a second application, titled “Facilitating manual user selection of one or more ads for insertion into a document to be made available to another user or users,” Google researchers describe an associated tool for allowing individuals to insert into their messages ads related to the search results they include. The ads can be either automatically generated, as in the AdSense system, or chosen individually. The tool, as the researchers describe it, “facilitates insertion of manually selected ads into a document that is to be distributed (e.g., transmitted, published, and/or posted) such that the document is to be made available to other users. For example, manually selected ads can be inserted into an email to be sent to another user, a blog to be posted for viewing by other users, a message to be sent to another user, a message board entry to be posted for viewing by other users, a document published and made available to other users, etc. Hence, [user-distributed] ads provide a scaleable advertising platform that achieves at least some of the benefits of manual targeting.”

Details of the patent include:

Consider, for example, a user that sends an email to members of her book club informing the members of what next month’s book is. Suppose that the user has manually inserted into the email “results” such as an image of the book cover, a UDS search result to a review of the book, and a normal amazon.com search result. When the recipients of this email open it, side-bar, content-relevant ads might also be provided. Such side-bar, content-relevant ads might have been automatically determined using, perhaps among other things (e.g., the textual content of the email message), information derived from the manually inserted “results.” For instance, Amazon might have an ad offering free shipping for purchases made in the next 48 hours.

Naturally, there’s a third application.  That one is about:

“Providing rewards for manual user insertion of one or more ads into a document to be made available to another user or users, for distribution of such documents, and/or for user actions on such distributed ads.” Such rewards, according to the filing, “might include one or more of (a) a monetary amount, (b) an enhanced reputation or reputation increase of [the user], and (c) a credit.”

That’s interesting, and it’s a direct answer to Facebook’s eventual plans, that’s for sure.  We covered this in “Memo to Facebook’s Ad Sales Team.”  As we highlighted in Memo to Facebook’s Sales Team, much the same way that Google looked beyond Yahoo! dominance in CPM-priced banner display ads to master CPC-priced text ads, Facebook can look at maximizing its Database of Connections to fine-tune referrals and recommendations and champion CPA-style ads.  Then again, there are a million things that can go wrong with that theory, too.  Then again, if I was Facebook’s Chief Revenue Officer, I’d recommend something very very different to hit $10B in revenues by 2014 (ten years after being founded, the time it took Google to hit $10B in revenues).