In two recently filed patent applications, RIM has detailed a proprietary method its developed to incorporate mobile advertising into the apps developers create for its App World. The news comes months after RIM announced the “Blackberry Advertising Service” back in November of last year, though no formal plans have been announced since.
The first patent, dubbed a “System and Method for Incorporating Multimedia Content Into a Message Handled By a Mobile Device,” goes on to state that “multimedia content can be incorporated into a message handled by a mobile device with minimum invasiveness by utilizing linking mechanisms that are visually identifiable with certain content and can reveal the multimedia content, e.g. an advertisement, upon selection.” The inventors go on to detail how it all comes together:
This (advertising) may be done by examining content in the message handled by a mobile device and matching portions of the message with predetermined criteria such as keywords or phrases. Upon finding matches, corresponding multimedia content is associated with a respective portion of the message content and access to the multimedia content is enabled through selection of a linking mechanism that is visually identifiable with the respective portion of the message. The message is modified to include such linking mechanisms such that upon viewing the modified message, a user may reveal the multimedia content by selecting the linking mechanism. It has also been recognized that multiple layers of multimedia content can be provided such that different types of user interaction can reveal different forms of multimedia content.
In a second patent application, RIM described a technology that will minimize occurrences of ad impression-inflation on part of app developers, by utilizing a “method of evaluating advertising metrics that may include, but does not require, receiving advertising metrics from an application handling advertisements, augmenting the advertising metrics with data from an advertising client, and validating the advertising metrics” In other words, RIM wants to make sure metrics in terms of ad-impressions are as accurate as possible for developers.
Though details are still limited as to exactly what RIM has up its sleeve in terms of app-monetization for its App World, its clear that they mean business, and that they plan to go it alone. Where the ads will come from is still up in the air, and a formal launch date is still a ways away, but RIM has an uphill battle to place itself in a prime position to take on the likes of Apple and Google in the mobile-ad wars. Only time will tell if they have what it takes.
