Today we are happy to announce the launch of moneyStrands, a personal money management solution, as well as the acquisition of Expensr, a leading online personal finance application.

This marks the first step towards Strands’ vision of applying its personalization technologies to new areas. Following with our mission of helping people discover new online content, services and products, we are now extending our social recommendation technology to help people find the best ways to save money and invest.

What is moneyStrands?
Currently in private beta testing, moneyStrands is an online money management solution that allows users to aggregate their online financial information in one place, providing them with an instant snapshot of all their finances. With moneyStrands, users can anonymously compare themselves to others with similar traits, such as demographics.

Key features of moneyStrands:

1.- Powered by Strands’ social recommendation technology, moneyStrands provides users with the best personalized recommendations possible, helping them find new ways to save money and invest.

2.- Tailored versions for Blackberry, iPhone and Nokia (S60) browsers, so that the service can be used on mobile devices just as easily as it can be used on computers.

3.- A powerful widget platform, enables maximum customization with minimum set-up time.

In order to ensure industry best practices are followed, moneyStrands benefits from Strands’ ties with BBVA, one of the world’s largest financial institutions. BBVA, a strategic investor in Strands ($24M invested in December 2007), is a financial services group with more than $783 billion in total assets, 42 million customers in 40 countries and a market capitalization of approximately $85 billion.

Expensr acquisition
Founded in 2006 by Reman Child and Shawn Gupta, Expensr is a free online application that takes an innovative approach to personal finance, combining social networking with financial management.

In addition to giving users the ability to manage all of their accounts in one place, Expensr provides analysis tools that let users categorize their spending and track changes over time; as well as budgeting tools to help users plan for future expenses. Users can also compare their spending habits with relevant sub-groups (e.g. students) within the Expensr community to see how their expenses match with their peers.

In September 2007 Expensr was presented on the cover of Business 2.0 magazine’s “Top 10 Disruptors”.

Part of Strands’ vision is to help people to improve their online lives by discovering relevant new content, services and products based on their tastes and empowering them to manage all of this in one place. Strands is currently building technologies to make this vision a reality and will have additional announcements in the coming months.