Patent ID: 8676650
Filing Date: 2014-03-18
Classification: G06Q,G09F

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented method for conducting an auction for selecting advertisements for display in online maps, the method comprising: generating, by a computer processor, an online map of a geographical area, the online map including map features of the geographical area; identifying advertisers having candidate advertisements for businesses represented in the geographical area of the online map; identifying for each advertiser, a bid price that the advertiser is willing to pay to include an associated candidate advertisement in the online map; calculating, for each candidate advertisement, a presentation cost describing a visual impact on the online map resulting from including the candidate advertisement in the online map, the calculation of the presentation cost based on an amount of overlap of the candidate advertisement with one or more of the map features included in the online map; selecting a set of advertisements from the candidate advertisements to include in the online map based on the bid price by each advertiser and the calculated presentation cost associated with each candidate advertisement; and storing information describing the online map and the selected set of advertisements.