You could soon be seeing your friends recommend products for you on your social network. Microsoft has filed a patent for a new advertising method for generating User-Generated-Advertisements.
The patent elaborates on the low engagement level in ads on social networks because of the low relevance factor. To solve this, the patent calls for a new technique wherein the original ad can be supplemented with user reviews – positive and negative.
In the filing, the inventors say that subsequent visitors to the website could be shown few of those reviews based on relevance (reviewer is the new visitor’s friend, they have similar interests, etc.). Here is an example quoted in the patent
” Advertisement 400 includes objective information 401 describing a product or service that is the subject of the advertisement 400. The objective information 401 is generally provided by a promoter of the product.”
“In other information fields 403, 405, and 407, information is presented that was provided by users of the social networking web site. This information can be subjective in nature, such as the accolade provided by “USER1″ in other information field 403.”
“if both the user which provided the information and the user to whom the advertisement is being presented are both members of the same social network (e.g., the users are “friends” or a functional equivalent within the social networking site), the information provided by the user is presented as part of the advertisement. Other criteria can also be applied in determining the amount of information to present.”
The patent emphasizes the use of reviews from users of one social network elsewhere in other websites or networks.
This looks a more exhaustive ads-review system that is currently used in Facebook. On Facebook, users may choose to ‘Like‘ an ad which is possibly used in determining other ads to be shown to the same user; though in Microsoft’s case the reviews are stored to be displayed to other users of the same social network or elsewhere.