True.com founder Herb Vest has applied for a patent to improve ad targeting. The application is for a “Method for improved targeting of online advertisements.” Take a look at the patent application for the details.
Patent applications are difficult to understand and the ambiguity makes it difficult to really grok what is being patented. After a quick scan I think the application is about mining dating profiles for demographic information which would be shared with advertisers. This is something I’ve been advocating for years, and written about in detail.
One of the most obvious benefits of dating site advertising is local advertisers. Once we know your zip code, local ads are a snap. Health, entertainment and finance industries would love to get ahold of your profile data, where else do people expose so much about themselves in a public forum?
From the application:
…Advertiser can use that information and categorize users using criteria such as age, gender, location, education, income level, or any other data field of the profile information.
In an example, a dating service may collect user information such as name, age, gender, location, education, annual income, and smoking preference during a user registration process. This profile information, containing both the actively and passively collected information, is extremely valuable to a company who may be interested in targeting their advertisements to certain groups of users who have responded positively to specific placements of an advertisement.
For instance, a dating service may be interested in acquiring additional females with incomes between $50,000 and $100,000. The profile information collected by the advertiser may show that females in that income group respond best to a certain advertisement on a specific financial web site. The advertiser can then shift resources toward those advertisements that best help them achieve their goal.
In the last part, why mention customer acquisition then targeted ads? Confusing.
Several references to dating sites and true.com throughout the application. No doubt True will use this to increase advertising revenue. Does anyone know if a company like Amazon has this type of patent already in place?
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