• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 3, 2010

Google updated a series of patent filings in January that could suggest the search giant plans to dig deeper into behavioral targeting, video content, and might also roll out dynamic advertising in its mapping applications.

The patents range from a method to deliver, target and measure advertising over networks to an overlay for advertisements in video content. For a company that attempts to stay away from the word "targeting" comes an update on a patent originally filed on July 24, 2009. The filing, updated on Jan. 28, 2010, provides a method to deliver ad targeting and measuring tools over networks.

The abstract explains methods for targeting the delivery of advertisements over a network, such as the Internet. Statistics are compiled on individuals and networks, and advertisements are tracked to permit targeting to individuals. In response to requests from affiliated sites, the patent explains how an advertising server delivers the advertisements to people accessing the Web site page. The ad is based on profiling the person and networks.

The advertising inventory allocation patent filing steps a bit out of the online space and into radio and television. It provides "a simultaneous ascending price auction (SAA) to allocate advertising inventory to bidders." The bidders, or advertisers, can provide advertisements for presentation in the spots. Two or more spots define an advertising block. Spots or advertising blocks are allocated to advertisers based on bid criteria. The SAA can perform simultaneous advertisement scheduling and pricing. The auction allocation is optimized to facilitate the allocation of ads to spots or blocks.

Aside from behavioral targeting and auctions, another patent updated in January describes a video ad overlay. The process appears to be similar to the lower-third ads created in YouTube. Updated on Jan. 14, but filed on June 9, 2009, the patent describes a method for creating ad overlays for use in digital videos. Attributes of a video overlay advertisement are entered through a browser-based interface that functions on a client device and communicates to a server. The server receives the signal, and in response, provides the client device with a video overlay advertisement with the desired attributes.

Google also updated a patent filing on video promotions in a video-sharing site. The patent abstract describes a method of promoting video content on a video hosting Web site. The technology helps to select the video and match it with an ad. The promoter selects associated keywords and indicates financial terms for the promotion, for example, by agreeing to a predetermined cost-per-click or cost-per-impression payment with the video hosting site.

A search on a keyword associated with the promoted video prompts the site hosting the video to serve the creative along with the other query search results. From there, the person viewing the content can select to watch any of the search results or the promoted video identified by the creative. When the viewer clicks on the indicia for the promoted video, the video hosting site serves up the page and the person can view the promoted video.

Google engineers have also put a focus on mapping. The patent filing to generate and serve tiles in a digital mapping system describes techniques that enable online serving of aesthetically pleasing maps. An image tile-based digital mapping system is configured for generating map tiles during an offline session, and serving selected sets of those tiles to a client when requested. It also describes a method for handling map labels and other such features in a tile-based mapping system, such as when a map label crosses map tile boundaries. These are served up through servers or computing devices.

Early in January, Google updated a patent filing that allows it to claim real estate in panoramic or 3D mapping environments for advertising. It could mean that real-time ads are on the way to Google Street View. Think dynamic ads in video games to get a sense of the possibilities. Many of the real-life billboards have obsolete ads. But what if you could change them depending on targeted ads based on information fed through the browser searching on a specific location?

This patent's abstract explains techniques for identifying groups of features in an online geographic view of a real property and replacing or augmenting the groups of features with advertisements. The techniques provide a geographic view of a property within an online property management system, identifying and serving up surroundings of interest in the geographic view, and analyzing the geographic view to locate one or more advertisements or promotions on a piece of real property.

The abstract goes on to explain the ability to provide someone with a link associated with the geographic location of the address they search on, and then store the data and update the area based on future data.