'Net Features : recommendation engine

Rec.fm Makes Online Shopping Charitable

E-Commerce Express : feature — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 14:43:00 GMT

New fundraising platform Rec.fm announced a special holiday promotion that doubles the amount of money consumers can earn for their favorite charities. Rec.fm normally gives 51% of its site earnings to charity, but now through December 31st, 100% of revenue...(read more)

You May Also Like "Strands"

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:11:00 GMT

Strands.com has announced the launch of a "plug-and-play" recommendation engine that gives online retailers the ability to offer "Amazon-like" personalized recommendations. Retailers can impliment the service through the site's API or with a widget plug-in that, according to Jesus Pindado of Strands, would only take 30 minutes of setup - a real game changer considering most recommendation technologies take days or weeks to establish (as I'm quickly finding out during the Internet Retailer tradeshow this week.) The plugin and availability of the API aims to do the same for other ecommerce sites. The service will be available by a flat monthly fee or through a revenue share program.

Strands, which was launched earlier this month as a music discovery service and mobile social networking service, was established to “help people discover new stuff.” Its mobile features include a mobile Web portal, a personalized radio station, and a personal version of partyStrands (a service for party organizers, bars, clubs and DJs.) Strands' mobile social networking service basically enables its users to find music and network with their friends via their mobile phones.

Definitely an interesting recommendation technology and one to watch out for.

MyBuys: I Buy, You Buy, We All Buy

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:32:00 GMT

Much like the current emphasis on social, recommendation engines are hot - real hot at this year's Internet Retailer conference and exhibition. MyBuys, a personalized product recommendation solution for online retailers, is one vendors selling these typs of services and with only a cursory look on my part, it's definitely one to consider if increasing average order value, CTR and customer lifetime value are prioritities - which they should be.

My Buys enables retailers to build deep profiles based on each shopper's behavior. Using its patented algorithm and real-time optimziation techniques, MyBuys is able to deliver user-specific, personalized and relevant product recommendations to users about items that they may want to purchase (even before they buy them) based on history, previous orders, etc. Web recommendations and personalized alerts are the tools to make it happen. Not neccessarily revolutionary, but interesting nonetheless. The benefit of all this recommendation technology is the increase in average order value, conversions rates, and click-through rates which when looked at collectively could lead to a higher lifetime value for each customer. Retailers such as Lancome, Skechers and others have already teamed up with the Redwood City, California company.

So what type of merchant is MyBuys right for? MyBuys is truly for high end retailers. Merchants will need to provide a data feed and two years of purchase history to have the solution implimented. Don't have that? Not a fit - move on. If it sounds like a fit, MyBuys does the rest, designing and building communication templates for email and the Web, generating Web-based reports and analysis, etc. The service is risk free (no implimentation fees) and offers a 90-day tiral with no set-up fees, consulting fees or upfront costs.