If you're an influential, Google wants you

Not sure if you saw this piece in BusinessWeek, but interesting patent pending technology from Google to base advertising on how influential you are. (Making Social Networks Profitable - subscription might be required). As the article starts, "Imagine there was one number that could sum up how influential you are." It would factor in how many people you know to how strongly they value your opinion.

Yes, the technology is focused on selling more ads, but talk about the potential (and, frankly, privacy invading). It is based on Google's PageRank technology which is used to determine the websites that get included in search results. With the new technology, not only would it track how many friends you have on a site like Facebook, but more importantly how many friends your friends have -- hence extending the influence of a given individual.

Here's an example from the article.

If Nike wanted to advertise a new basketball shoe, for example, it could work with Google to plop an interactive free-throw game only on the profile pages of the community influencers, knowing the game would be likely to draw the most attention in these locations. And because the new technique ranks links among groups, Google could also target the ads to broader communities. "I would pay a premium to get a particular video in front of someone who [shares] with others, and an even bigger premium for a lot of people who would share," says Ian Schafer, CEO of online ad firm Deep Focus, whose clients include Sean Jean and Universal Music Group.