Google’s Newest Patent: Set To Serve Up More Interactive And Relevant Mobile Ads?

Sure looks like it. This brief post reports Google has filed an intriguing patent revolving around methods to vastly improve how it will serve ads to mobile phones. According to Google’s patent application (complete text here), the company sees a need for a scheme that delivers ads in tune with factors such as the user’s activity at that moment. More specifically, the patent states “a mobile device user’s experience may be improved as the user is presented with an ad format suitable to her prevailing circumstances.”
How could this function in practice? Some indication of the use scenario can be found in the patent. “In some implementations, portions of the dynamic service of advertisements may be performed on a central server, while other portions may be performed locally on the mobile device. For example, a central server may aggregate a group of advertisements or a group of ad formats for one or more advertisements, perhaps in response to a query from the mobile device, and may download the content to memory on the local device. Then, following storage of the content, selection of the appropriate advertisement or ad format may be performed locally at the mobile device.”
The wording is a bit abstract, but the message I hear coming through is a sharp focus at Google on plugging an important hole: its inability to deliver the right ads to the right user at the right time (a gap that rival white-label providers, including JumpTap, claim to have covered). As mobile search becomes more personalized (and the signs are everywhere that this will be where the action is in 2007), the capability to deliver ads based on the individual user’s patterns, preferences, location and activity will be the essence of a search engine’s competitive edge.