• “The publishers define the content of such publications, and advertisers define which advertisements (ads) may be seen in the publications. Since consumers have no control over publication content or advertisements, they may purchase a publication that contains at least some content and advertisements that may be of no interest to them.”
• “Publishers often lack insight into the profiles of consumers who purchase their publications, and, accordingly, miss out on subscription and advertisement revenue due to a lack of personalized content and advertisements.”
• “Advertisers sometimes purchase sub-optimal or worthless ad space in an attempt to reach their target markets. Advertisers also have difficulty identifying new prospective market segments to target because they have limited insight into the desires and reactions of consumers.”

Google says that the solution to these problems is to allow the users to search for content that interests them and then to give them a printed copy of that content which includes advertisements tailored toward the interests of the reader.

Google also said that there is the possibility of using kiosks in stores such as Target and supermarkets to create and print the documents.

The patent is just the first stage as of now and the project may not materialize for years, if at all. However, now that they have the patent, it is possible that Google will claim infringement if any established magazines tried to allow readers to customize content in the same ways.

Source: TechCrunch