Google To Expand Its Advertising To Social Networks

Google has a patent pending to make social network sites profitable by opening up the sites to advertising.  It seems that Google is working on a system similar to page ranking in which to categorize social networks and their members by popularity and than apply their successful advertising model to the new scheme. Though Google is remaining relatively quiet about what they are planning, according to BusinessWeek this new technology could change how social networks operate:

Google declined to discuss its idea withBusinessWeek. But it is based on the same principle as PageRank, Google’s algorithm for determining which Web sites appear in a list of search results. The new technology could track not just how many friends you have on Facebook but how many friends your friends have. Well-connected chums make you particularly influential. The tracking system also would follow how frequently people post things on each other’s sites. It could even rate how successful somebody is in getting friends to read a news story or watch a video clip, according to people familiar with the patent filing. “[Google] search displays Web pages with the highest influence—it makes complete sense for them to extend this to online communities and people,” says Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester Research (FORR).

One could see the added potential, not only for Google, but also for social network site owners. This could add more dollars to their income and could also provide those who have pages on the social network sites added income as well.

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