In a sinister sign of things to come, MediaPost has discovered Amazon.com patent applications for in-book advertising in ebooks. The discovery has sparked speculation amongst several news outlets that Amazon.com may be planning to introduce ad-supported Kindles as one way of battling the cost of the device as a barrier to adoption.
The two patent applications (available here and here) contain somewhat absurd justifications for this technology:
Indeed, most content providers that host “free” Internet sites are typically supported by advertisements. Of course, in regard to out-of-print or rare books, they typically do not include advertisements and, if they do, the advertisements are out of date and inapplicable. However, as disclosed below, as part of printing documents in an on-demand fashion, the on-demand printed content provides the opportunity to incorporate advertisements, as well as other subject matter, in an on-demand printed document.
So for all you Sherlock Holmes fans outraged at having wade through back copies of The Strand filled with ads for technologically inferior girdles, don’t worry, Amazon.com’s going to make everything alright.
Does Amazon honestly expect these patents to get issued? Or that people really will put up with invasive advertising in books just to get a device? Maybe. However, a cursory glance at the applications indicates there’s not much difference Amazon’s proposed technology, and the in-PDF advertising technology Adobe and Yahoo! launched a couple of years ago…and recently discontinued.