Strands Blog

We are extremely pleased to announce that Dr. Joseph McCarthy, former Principal Scientist at Nokia Research Center Palo Alto, has joined MyStrands as Principal Instigator.

As computing technologies move beyond the desktop and into the other spaces that we inhabit, new possibilities are emerging for tools that can help us connect with the kindred spirits around us, says Joe. He thinks we all could take advantage of more opportunities to share valuable insights and experiences with others. He looks for innovative ways for technology to develop and improve interpersonal relationships.

Joe received a a doctorate in computer science from the University of Massachusetts and a master’s degree in computer science from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute. He has held the position of research project leader with frontrunners in technology, including Intel Research and Accenture Technology Labs.

Joe’s most recent instigation at Nokia Research Center Palo Alto was the design, development and deployment of a new generation of proactive displays – large computer displays that can sense people in their physical proximity (via their Bluetooth phones) and respond by showing digital content relating to those people (e.g., photos from their Flickr accounts, if they’ve chosen to share them). He currently enjoys additional roles as husband, father, wine aficionado and blogger.

Watch this cool interview with Trevor Legwinski aka “partyTrevor“, speaking about MyStrands and partyStrands, featured today on ABC News.

Exactly!

Yes, MyStrands is expanding by leaps and bounds. Our latest addition, R. Scott Doan, is the 100th member of our team. Already at 100 people…and growing!

Scott joins MyStrands as VP, Enterprise Sales. He is a veteran executive with early stage companies with deep enterprise sales, business development and channel sales experience.

A week ago I sent a note to Chris Saad letting him know that I’d like to participate in the Data Portability group as a part of MyStrands. I wanted to talk a little bit about why we wanted to do that.We’re really excited about the work that the Data Portability (DP) group is chartered to do. The goal of the group is to build a set of technical and policy blueprints based on existing technologies and concepts that will allow for the free-flow and control of data by users among sites on the web. Taking advantage of the building blocks like OpenID, OAuth and microformats allows the effort to move that much faster.Although we have many of the components we need to get this started, I do still believe we’re missing some key elements. We still don’t have a clear means of messaging, attention data is still being sorted out and there still isn’t a good way to describe a users general tastes. Over the coming months we’ll be working on ways to tackle this “taste” problem in hopes that it can also become one of the key building blocks of the web.Chris Saad has done a great job in getting everyone to the table for the discussion. That’s more than just about anybody else has been able to do and I think timing is a key component here. I’m really hoping that we can get folks to agree on a course of action and move things forward quickly. The only concern I would have is that we’re all sitting down to the table for dinner and I’m not sure we all know what “dinner” is. That said, we’re game and really interested in seeing this happen. Its inevitable and this is a great chance to make it happen.MyStrands is committed to the Data Portability group because we believe we can really help make things happen and be an integral part of its success.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports today that Corvallis born recommendation company CleverSet is selling out to Art Technology Group for $10 million (CEO Todd Humphrey writes about it in CleverSet’s blog).

Other players in the same market include Aggregate Knowledge ($25M raised), ChoiceStream ($13.1M in Series B), recently funded Criteo (€10M) and of course MyStrands ($55M raised).

We wish CleverSet’s founder Bruce D’Ambrosio and the entire team the best for the future, and look forward to creative collaborations again this summer.

We are very pleased to announce ACM Recommender Systems 2008 (RecSys08), the annual event on research and applications of recommender technologies, where the recommendation industry and academia come together. MyStrands’ CEO, Francisco Martin, will repeat as Industry co-chair this year, along with Unilever’s Shail Patel.

This conference builds on the success of Recommenders06 Summer School organized by MyStrands in Bilbao in 2006, and the 1st International Conference in Minneapolis last year. In these events many members of the practitioner and research communities valued the rich exchange of ideas made possible by the shared plenary sessions.

Why should this matter to you? As our Chief Scientist Rick Hangartner recently wrote:

Search engines as we know them will never disappear. In the near term, search engines will increasingly incorporate simple recommender technologies to handle approximate queries … But in the long term, the recommender industry will be larger, and recommender technologies will be more pervasive than the search industry and search technology as we know it.

If this were not enough, this year’s event will take place in beautiful Lausanne, Switzerland.

ACM Recommender Systems 2008 is chaired by Pearl Pu, General Chair, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Please visit the RecSys08 website for further information regarding topics of interest, important dates and more.

The guys over at the N95 blog have compiled a list of must-have applications that should enlighten the use of your Nokia N95 and give you even more pleasure. Some really cool applications in the list such as Fring, Wwigo, Jaiku, Shozu… and of course our MyStrands Social Player, which is powered by Strands Recommender.