Slashdot is all atwitter as it found some Amazon Patents for inserting Ads in books - one for ads in Kindle ebooks and another for ads in on-demand printed physical books. Both patents were filed December 27, 2007.
While I think this will be to subsidize free books, and makes for a great strategy in case Google starts offering most/all books free (and supported by ads), the users at Slashdot are upset as they don’t want ads in books that people have already paid for.
The patent clearly shows that ads are opt-out indicating paid books and advertising-supported books.
Let’s take a deeper look at the patents themselves -
Ads in Kindle eBooks Patent
The patent is titled ‘On Demand Generating eBook Content with Advertising’.
First, an image -
Kindle eBook Ad Patent
From the patent we can tell -
- The Ad will be an individual page amongst the pages of the kindle book. The page might have multiple ads.
- Ads will be arranged periodically and in the breaks between sections (chapters probably).
- Context Sensitive Ads -
the selected advertisement is included within the plurality of displayable pages of the requested content according to the subject matter of the selected advertisement and the subject matter of the requested content such that the subject matter of the selected advertisement is related to the subject matter of the requested content at the location that the selected advertisement is included within the plurality of displayable pages of the requested content
- Ads might be in the margins with the margins moved to accomodate ads.
- User Profile Targeted and Context Sensitive Ads -
selecting an advertisement to be included in the requested content further comprises selecting an advertisement according to consumer profile interests corresponding to the consumer that requested the content and according to the subject matter of the requested content such that the subject matter of the requested content and the subject matter of the selected advertisement and the consumer profile interests are related
- The ads can be tracked to see their effectiveness and they can also be used to trigger related applications (perhaps a browser to buy something, perhaps amazon shopping app) -
the selected advertisement includes actionable content for activating a related application on a viewing device displaying the computer-displayable content including the selected advertisement
- There’s an advertisement store and a consumer profile store - Customers can specify what type of ads they want to see, are ok to be shown.
Ads in Printed Books Patent
This Amazon Ad patent is almost identical and focuses on print-on-demand books. The detailed descriptions in both patents seem to hint that -
- The advertisements might be used primarily for out of print and free books.
- The books (and the ads) seem to be targeting PCs too as there’s mention of things that can be done by hovering the mouse on the ad, etc.
Its also interesting to see where the ads will be placed (ad supported books are going to look terrible) -
Kindle Ad Placement - In Margins and In Between Chapters
A Twist in the Tale?
Definitely more than meets the eye here.
- This seems to be a shopping feature more than a books feature.
- What if this patent is not about displaying ads in books, and is instead about displaying ads in search results on the kindle? Perhaps search results for shopping searches at Amazon.com. Perhaps search results in general.
- Why would there be a need to make it ‘on-demand’ and generated on the request of the user?
Update: Someone at Slashdot pointed out something that might be considered prior art and invalidate these patents – from the NYTimes, ads in books.
Finally, these might be Amazon patents – however, this is so like Google that it makes me think Amazon got word (or assumed) Google’s strategy would be free books supported by Ads and beat them to the punch.
Filed under: extensions, kindle Tagged: | amazon kindle ad, kindle ad
Bound-in advertising was common in mass-market paperbacks from the ’40s through the ’70s, until author/agent outrage eventually killed it. Blown-in ads (similar to blown-in ads in magazines) were slightly less common, but also known in that era. So advertising in books is nothing new, though it has been rare for the last generation.
The placement of those ads on printed-book pages also seems very similar to placement of advertisements in magazines, in particular 19th century “penny dreadfuls” and the like. There would appear to be a vast amount of prior art here.
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