ALEXANDRIA, Va.-Google Inc. is working to patent a wireless marketing method that would allow users to dial an advertiser’s phone number with a single click, according to a U.S. Patent & Trademark Office application published last week.
The document, which was cited last week on the blog SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by the Sea, outlines a mobile marketing strategy that delivers advertisements that include clickable phone numbers.
“The present invention concerns adapting an online ad environment to make ads more useful for devices with call functionality, and/or a limited ability to render Web pages in a manner more satisfying to a user… such as mobile phones for example,” according to the document. “When such an ad is selected (e.g., via a button click), instead of loading a document (e.g., Web page) for rendering, a telephone number associated with the ad by an advertiser is automatically dialed.”
A Google representative was not immediately available to comment.
The application highlights the increasingly cut-throat mobile search and marketing space, where more than a half dozen firms are seeking to gain a foothold. Internet giants America Online Inc., Ask Jeeves Inc., Google and Yahoo Inc. are lumbering onto the wireless playground, where smaller companies including 4INFO, Free411.com, InfoSpace Inc., Interchange Corp. and JumpTap Inc. are already fighting to be the carriers’-and the consumers’-provider of choice.
While many mobile search-and-marketing services are similar, several players are heading in different directions to establish a business model. InfoSpace hopes to generate revenues from every call a consumer makes using their offering, while JumpTap is looking to partner with carriers to replicate established Internet-search models similar to Google’s AdWords.
How Google’s proposed marketing method is worthy of a patent is unclear, however. Many text message search services already include links to phone numbers that users can dial with a single click.
