Google’s been eating up IBM patents like they’re going out of fashion. The patents number in the thousands and will mostly come to nothing but court fodder, but one in particular stands out thanks to what it could mean for Google+.
Google’s IBM patent buys are more than likely to be in the name of stockpiling, should they need to call on the in court at a later date, but the one that could prove game-changing is a patent for “Using semantic networks to develop a social network.”
It details “a method, apparatus and program product are provided for identifying common interests between users of a communication network,” that would “be determined, for example, by calculating a ratio of the number of words in a content source to the time spent viewing the content.”
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And that means…? Essentially it means that a social network could start introducing you to complete strangers (experts in a certain field, for example) based on your mutual interests, but not just the interests you have written in your profile – the interests it gleans from your web activity.
If Google were to apply this to Google+ it could radically alter the primary focus of the social network from being a mere Facebook rival to something potentially useful for professionals or the public alike.
Imagine you had a classic car but were in need of some advice on how to do it up. Google+ could put you in touch with someone local who spends their time looking at classic car content online, but doesn’t have that listed explicitly in their profile’s ‘interests’. Watch this space.
Via Mashable
