Google Inc.

Davi Reis

Christian Oestlien

Marcus A Leal

Eider Silva De Oliveira

Igor Prata Soares

Rob Figueiredo

Frederico Quintao

Felipe Goldstein

Francisco G Matos

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, are described for providing content. A method includes: receiving a request for an advertisement to be displayed in a slot associated with a third-party content site; identifying a relevant advertisement to be provided in the slot; determining information to be included in an annotation associated with the advertisement, the annotation including customized information related to a user or a group associated with the user that is to be presented along with the advertisement; providing the advertisement responsive to the request including providing the annotation along with a control for re-publishing the advertisement along with the relevant advertisement; receiving user input selecting the control and designating the advertisement for re-publishing; and targeting additional content to the user or a group associated with the user based on the received user input.

Evaluating user activity in social environments

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, for providing content. A method includes receiving a request for an advertisement to be displayed in a slot associated with a third-party content site; identifying a relevant advertisement to be provided in the slot; determining information to be included in an annotation associated with the advertisement, the annotation including customized information to be presented along with the advertisement; providing the advertisement responsive to the request including providing the annotation along with a control for re-publishing the advertisement along with the relevant advertisement; receiving user input selecting the control and designating the advertisement for re-publishing to a group, the group being designated by the user; and targeting additional content to the group based on the received user input.

Targeting an aggregate group

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, for providing a method that includes receiving an indication from a user to promote an item that is included in an activity stream associated with the user, the activity stream being presented in a social context by a social application; receiving a request for an advertisement; determining the item is responsive to the request; determining one or more advertisements responsive to the request; ranking the item and the one or more advertisements; and providing the item in response to the request rather than the one or more advertisements and based at least in part on the rankings.

Promoting content from an activity stream

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer-readable storage medium, are described for providing content to a user. A method comprises: receiving an update for publication to an activity stream associated with the user, the activity stream being produced by a social application executing on one or more server computers and being published for consumption by one or more subscribers to the social application that have been designated by the user as being authorized to receive the update; and distributing additional content to the user based on the received user update.

Targeting based on social updates

In general, a method for providing content to a user includes providing a content item to a user responsive to a received request. The content item is displayed to the user in a slot associated with a third party content site. The content item includes a first annotation providing information for or about re-publishing the content item. A request is received from the user to follow a content provider associated with the content item. The user is designated as being interested in updated content from the content provider. Designating the user includes presenting information about the user to one or more of the content provider or a social application that includes a content provider presence so as to allow for updates associated with the content provider to be followed by the user.

Following content providers in a social context

The subject matter of this specification can be embodied in, among other things, a method that receives at a server a first request to rebroadcast a first sponsored content item that was displayed on the social network to the first user to a second user. A second request to display at least one sponsored content item to the second user when the second user accesses an electronic document associated with the social network is received at the server. The first sponsored content item is retrieved for rebroadcast from one or more sponsored content items indicated for rebroadcast to the second user. The first sponsored content item is output to the second user of the social network in response to the second request to display and without requiring the second user to select the first sponsored content item for display.

Growing community of inventors

Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Davi Reis