Group items tagged

"Walmart began recruiting top Silicon Valley talent and acquiring start-ups last year. For instance, Walmart acquired Kosmix, a company that specializes in making web design more seamless, for $300 million. That team has been working for over a year to fix Walmart's systems and improve its website.  Walmart is investing in the "social gifting" market. A year ago, Walmart launched "Shopycat," which makes gift recommendations based on friends' Facebook profiles. The site is now called "Walmart Gifts" and allows customers to log in and get personalized recommendations based on Facebook and Twitter profiles.  The retailer got a better search engine. A dozen top engineers took 10 months to build it, and while the company won't discuss sales figures, they said the new system is more user-friendly. "If you search for cotton socks now, you'll actually find them," Manjoo writes.  Walmart is trying to lead the charge in same-day shipping. Its at an advantage considering that 96 percent of Americans live within 20 miles of a Walmart.  Walmart is investing like crazy in its mobile app. "Walmart imagines that as you go through an average day, you'll remember things you need--milk, bread, a new tennis racquet, a toy truck for your nephew's birthday--and tell the voice-enabled Walmart app. The app will list each item's location inside your local Walmart and include product info; eventually, it will also learn your preferences and offer recommendations. And once you're actually in the store, you'll be able to summon an associate to help you," Manjoo says. "

Currently, the Preen.me website appears to mainly be a place for makeup and beauty ideas, but that will change in time. In the future, the goal is to allow users to find out what the top products are in any category based on the recommendations of those with similar profiles. For example, you'll be able to tell Preen.me that you're between 25 and 35 years old, have combination skin and live in a humid climate, and it will return a list of the top moisturizers women like you recommend. Essentially, it's a big data play built on top of crowdsourced user recommendations.

"Pandora-like interface" that lets you mark dishes as "want it," "loved it," "tried it," or "hide it." The latter lets you hone your recommendations and weed out the types of dishes that you want to avoid

Mobile limits you to just searching nearby, but the Explore on the web will let you search anywhere to plan. The more you check-in, the better Explore knows what to recommend to you. 

daily 7.28

Rfave is a service built on recommending services popular among people with similar Likes and interests, not just people you're friends with. 

users are presented with more relevant discounted products the more they interact with the site.  they make recommendations based on what you like and dislike.

works like pinterest except is geared more for recommendations

PinPointing is a service that recommends Zappos products based on different Pinterest pins and boards. Users open PinPointing, enter a pinner or board name and PinPointing recommends Zappos products that are similar so they can easily purchase that product. 

Uses info from FB to make suggestions on what to give as gifts

New app for recommendations looks at what your friends and friends of friends like in a particular location

Social recommendation engine to find a babysitter

"It's personalized travel recommendations not just for cities, but also what you can do in cities,"

Apptitude detects what mobile apps your friends might be using by scanning their wall posts, so you don't have to convince your friends to use Apptitude to get the benefit of the service. Smart.

Linking objects to drive home how clothing fits into lifestyle

"How can brands do a better job of fostering these relationships so that they're at the forefront of consumer's minds? 1. Develop a great product. Not to resuscitate the Mac vs. PC argument, but there's a reason many people aren't hesitant to recommend their MacBook or iPhone to a friend. 2. Facilitate social sharing. Brands need to be engaged with consumers via social media, and brands need product sites and marketing programs that facilitate seamless social sharing. 3. Create sampling programs to reach digital consumers. Many influential digital consumers are eager to discuss their love of specific products and brands. Marketers need to reach and engage them in innovative ways, such as via sampling programs, contests, coupons. 4. Get game. Brand can introduce game element through badges, achievements, and prizes to turn their consumers to brand ambassadors and engage them in a fun way."

"The brand identified company-created and fan-created accounts. The results of that first audit: 232 Facebook pages, along with roughly 100 YouTube channels and 30 Twitter accounts. A case was made for why individual markets would gain fans and views if they eliminated local accounts in favor of global Reebok accounts. Some markets were hesitant. To get them onboard, Mr. Bahl allowed test posts on the global Facebook page and illustrated how related-video recommendations can juice views on YouTube. Markets such as Hong Kong quickly realized their customers were already gravitating toward global accounts. Some local accounts, like India's Facebook page, with nearly 1.8 million fans, remain in place. Reebok whittled its overall social presence by roughly half in that first audit as it rolled up the majority of company-created accounts to focus on three Facebook pages, two Twitter accounts and one YouTube channel. It left fan-created content untouched. The brand also established a broader communications strategy, defining who could use trademarks to create accounts and for what purpose. A second audit is now taking place, with the goal of further streamlining Reebok's social-media presence by the end of the year -- just in time for 2013 product launches."

Cody also acts as a kind of virtual coach. When users first load the app, they're asked to identify their goals - from losing weight to building muscle tone to de-stressing. For now, the app just surfaces original content about workouts, healthy living and other topics that match up with those goals. But, ultimately, Javid said, the plan is for Cody to learn from users' activity and recommend articles, workouts, people or places that fit their interests. In time, he added, the app could integrate with fitness tracking devices to get an even more comprehensive view of each user.