New Google Ad Patent Would Offer Free Taxi Service

Google is always looking for new innovations, and new ways to push the boundaries of the common way of advertising. It looks like Google has a new patent out that encompasses both new innovations and a new way of advertising. The new patent is for an ad service that would offer a free taxi to the store from which the retailers advertisement you just clicked on online. An abstract of the patent logged by Google is;

“The invention involves automatically comparing the cost of transportation and the potential profit form a completed transaction using a number of real-time calculations.”

This new patent heavily relies on expensive purchases, for someone say looking for a new car or an expensive tech item such as a new TV or computer this service would be great for. However I don’t think it’s viable for say someone looking for a toothbrush or another low-cost product. Google has always been interested in real-time calculations and with this new patent Google has gone onto explain the depth involved in the real-time calculations that would take place;

“The calculation may consider various factors including a consumer’s current location, the consumer’s most likely route and form of transportation (such as train, personal car, taxi, rental car, or shared vehicle), the consumer’s daily agenda, the price competing advertisers are willing to pay for the customer to be delivered to alternate locations, and other costs. In this regard, the customer’s obstacles to entering a business location are reduced while routing and cost calculations are automatically handled based on the demand for the advertiser’s goods and potential profit margins.”

While this new patent seems to be focusing on giving psychical store owners a fighting chance against online stores that offer discounts over the common brick and mortar stores. It will be interesting to see if customers would rather save a certain percentage by shopping online or have the feeling of importance by having a car sent out to you by the store who is competing with the online market and therefore signalling each customer out rather than just appealing to the masses like an online store would. Would you rather shop online and save a little off the recommended retail price, or feel important having a car sent out to your location to go shopping?

Thank you CNET for the information provided

Image courtesy of Digital Spy