After the era of search (1994-2006) we move towards the final stage of personalization. There are many hundreds of companies flexing their algorithmic muscles to provide a tailored way to filter billions of media items down to something manageable and relevant to you. Yes you, out there reading this now.
To whet your appetite here is a tiny, mixed bag selection of companies & organizations (big and small) with their heads above the sand working in this space. I will be posting further batches of lists and extracting as links die using the wonders of WordPress edit.
The LivePlasma format/algorithm has been around since 1994 in various guises. A nodal way of finding things relevant to you “Liveplasma is a new way to broaden your cultual horizons according to your taste in music and movies.”
The big boys & girls Google and Yahoo are obviously very active in this space. At the moment Yahoo’s MyWeb 2.0 is in beta stage but it is the start of the on-going provision of personalized versions of the web.
and here is Google’s beta (faq) offering in the same space “Personalized Search is an improvement to Google search that orders your search results based on what’s most relevant to you. The Search History feature of Personalized Search lets you view and manage your history of searches and search results you’ve clicked on; this information then personalizes your future search results by bringing results closer to the top when it’s clear they’re most relevant to you.”
The Center for Digital Democracy have lots of useful articles and resources on personalizing your media “The broadband revolution–much like the radio, television, cable, and online revolutions of the recent past–provides yet another opportunity to make our media system more democratic, more diverse, and more participatory.”
Synthespia seem to be a company on the ‘internet personalization’ ball, they should change that name & logo though. “The vStory Media Personalization Platform lets you mass produce and deliver thousands of offers, ads, and rich, compelling content highly individualized for each customer, each subscriber, each and every member of your audience.”
Mobile phones with media creation capabilities are rapidly entering the marketplace. In 2003, there were more cameraphones sold worldwide than digital cameras. cameraphones will bring about a revolution in consumer imaging because they are not only networked, but programmable. Berkeley Mobile Media Metadata MMM.
Our mission is to apply innovative personalization technology to help make people’s lives better. Findory
No list could leave off the likes of Flickr who are single handedly changing the way we share our personal images through simple personalization technologies. “Flickr is a way to get your photos to the people who matter to you”
To provide a forum for industry discussion and information, sponsor research, foster standards for technology and best practices Personalization Consortium
“…the social uses of personal photography as an aid both to understanding how people use and will use emerging technology” Berkeley The Social Uses of Photos
Slightly left field but certainly falling in the personal media space, Ambient Personalized Media “we are developing a technological infrastructure for creating personalized ambient communication links to enhance a sense of presence and togetherness between two distant individuals.” I can certainly see other things beyond the flower used as the example having broader appeal, especially for broad minded people 😉
Loomia starting to really move forward with their recommendation portal – but with simple clustering algorithms they are now – “Loomia is a podcast and videocast search engine plus much more. Our goal is to help you discover, share, and manage things of interest to you.”
