Google may soon offer advertisements on buildings and billboards in Google Street View images, replacing the ads in older images, the Telegraph reports.
The search giant has been granted a patent, entitled "Claiming Real Estate in Panoramic or 3D Mapping Environments for Advertising," for technology that will help it identify posters, billboards, and buildings within the Street View online maps and, in turn, sell that space to advertisers, who will be able to replace the images with newer ads.
For example, theaters with marquees visible in Google Street View will be able to update the old images with their latest shows. Of course, Google also recognizes a potential market in these digital billboards, and the patent mentions that the space could alternately be sold to the advertiser with the highest bid -- similar to Google's AdWords system.
