Exciting. Location-based advertising is not exactly new. But a new patent filed by Yahoo takes it a step further which will help to make advertising a lot more targeted and useful.
Imagine that you are in San Francisco and are driving to Los Angeles. A search query for “Best hotels” would normally pick your location and display advertisements from San Francisco based hoteliers. However, according to a new patent titled “SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING LOCATION PREDICTIVE ADVERTISING” filed by Yahoo at the US Patent and Trademark Organization (USPTO), the algorithm may be able to study the direction you are traveling to determine your destination and deliver ads accordingly. Thus a search for “best hotels” from San Francisco while traveling to Los Angeles might actually get you results for Los Angeles based hotels.
Explaining about this technology on their patent, the inventors write
“a system may include a memory, an interface and a processor. The memory may be operatively connected to the processor and the interface and may store an advertisement. The interface may communicate with an electronic device. The processor may determine a first geographic location of an electronic device which is travelling in a direction. The processor may identify a first geographic region which may encompass the first geographic location of the electronic device. The processor may determine a second geographic region which is located in the direction of travel of the electronic device. The processor may determine an advertisement associated with the second geographic region in accordance with the electronic device being located within the first geographic region. The processor may provide the advertisement to the electronic device. ”
Yahoo says this technology can be used at an intra-city, inter-city as well as international level. They further claim that advertisers who spend a lot of their budget purchasing inventory from untargeted sources (Eg: Hoteliers in Los Angeles purchasing inventory in San Francisco) may now save money on such a wasteful expenditure.
Do you think that’s possible?