Austria based tunesBag, an online music hub that allows its users to store, access and share songs and playlists recently launched Strands Social Recommender™ in their player. Users can now get recommendations based on the tracks they play, rate, add to a playlist as well as the recommendations they like by clicking on them.

tunesBag uses Strands™ flexible algorithm configuration to influence how the recommendations are calculated. Based on the current track that the user has selected, other tracks with the same tags and artists are given high priority resulting in similar music recommendations. Through Strands™, users can also discover new artists that share similar styles with the tunes in their music libraries. While users can get recommendations from day one, the quality of recommendations improves with continued use as the user behavior starts to influence the results. Strands Social Recommender™ builds on listening histories and evolves with the current behavior ensuring that recommendations are relevant and offer consistent content discovery. Unlike recommendation features in other music clients, Strands Social Recommender™ is able to truly personalize recommendations by filtering out tracks that are no longer relevant, ie, user gave track low ratings, already owns track or added track to favorites.

We’ve been busy at Strands Business Solutions, working with some really great partners.

We have some insightful and interesting content about our technology, as well as some case studies up on our new site, and you can check them out here:

The secret sauce: What Strands technology is really all about
http://recommender.strands.com/tech_social.sbs

The Strands recommender API for developers
http:/recommended.strands.com/dev/

Skymall: Personalized Recommendations drive double-digit sales lift
http://recommender.strands.com/ecommerce_case.sbs

IHeartMovies: Personalized recommendations result in double digit CTR (Click through rate)-lift
http://recommender.strands.com/social_case.sbs

We’re also out and about meeting some great people at conferences this month and next, and would like to introduce ourselves!

Here’s where we’ve been and where we’ll be:

eTail West 2009 in Phoenix, AZ
http://www.wbresearch.com/etailusawest/

eTail has been around for 10 years and it is the premier event to discuss e-commerce small and large.

Jane Kwak and Scott Doan were there representing the team and would love to follow up with you.   Email us at sales-sbs@strands.com

South by Southwest: Interactive (SxSWi) – March 13th -17th
http://www.sxsw.com/interactive
Austin, TX

We’ll be making a splash in Austin this year at the Superbowl of internet technology conferences.   If you’re planning on going, be sure to make it to our panel session:

“You may also be interested in…”
How recommendation affects our digital lives.  An interactive discussion about recommendation technology, implementation and analytics.  How can it help your site or app?  Come find out.   Sponsored by Strands Business Solutions.

Drew Olanoff of Strands will be moderating, and the panelists include Mike Hudack from Blip.tv, Trevor Legwinski from Strands Business Solutions, and Alex Hillman, founder of IndyHall.

The session is on Monday the 16th at 5pm, come out and join the discussion!

We are happy to announce that Strands is partnering with the Spanish start-up 11870.com to offer the best personalized recommendations of services and places to their users.

11870.com, the European equivalent to Yelp, is used for people to save, share and keep track of the places and services they like around the world through reviews, pictures and videos.

From now on, 11870.com will offer its users suggestions of places and services based on users interests and behavior. 11870.com will use Strands Social Recommender, which delivers advanced social recommendation and personalization technology, as an easy-to-use Strands hosted service.

The recommender works in several areas:

Personalized recommendations: when user log in, they will find a list of places and services tailored just for them.

Recommendations within a specific location: each city or location includes a “recommendations” feature, where users will find personalized recommendations of places and services within that region.

Recommendations inside categories: when you visit a category such as “hotels in London” or “Spanish restaurants in San Francisco”, the recommender suggests each user a number of services that might fit with his or her interests.

Similar services: when you go to a product page, the system suggests a list of similar services, broadening the list of options for you to chose from. This is available both for registered and non-registered users. For example, if you chose an Italian restaurant, the recommender will suggest similar Italian restaurants.

Strands is especially happy to be involved in this project, as 11870.com is one of the most successful European start-ups. Watch them carefully!

You can read more information on the 11870.com blog.

Thanks to everybody who attended Recked, the informal event for engineers interested in recommender systems. It was awesome. And thanks to Robert Gaal for putting the event together.

You can find the three presentations (Strands, Wakoopa and Reccoon) below.

Board a domestic flight and check the seat pocket in front of you, chances are you’ll find Strands’ latest client, SkyMall.

Launching in early November, Strands Social Recommender™ will be powering personalized product recommendations for SkyMall’s extensive online store of over 7,500 gifts, gadgets and home innovations—from the unusual to the practical—just in time for the holiday season.

Strands Social Recommender will provide an enhanced shopping experience to SkyMall customers, providing highly relevant recommendations to help them discover products based on their taste and intent.  Analyzing thousands of customer touchpoints, Strands Social Recommender “learns” what SkyMall shoppers are looking for, and then dynamically recommends tailored suggestions, while they browse.

We are thrilled to be working with SkyMall!

We are happy to announce that Strands Social Recommender™ is now powering personalized product recommendations at DollarDays, the online wholesaler and closeout company that hosts a Web-based virtual warehouse at www.dollardays.com.

Business owners and charities shop at DollarDays to find deals on small business-sized orders for more than 30,000 consumer products–from toys and household décor to apparel, electronics and seasonal merchandise.

Strands will also offer a free 30-day trial of Strands Social Recommender™ to DollarDays’ 1.1 million retail customers/members.  Starting October 1st, members will be able to trial the same recommendation and personalization technology powering www.dollardays.com without any setup fees and implementation costs.

DollarDays adds 900 new members each day that include a variety of retailers from convenience stores, medium-sized brick & mortar retailers, shopping mall kiosk companies, discount stores, seasonal shops to large established companies.

Strands Social Recommender™ is a SaaS plug-and-play recommendation engine that can be easily and quickly installed by eCommerce and Media Web sites. The Strands Social Recommender can be installed through the Strands API or by adding personalization widgets to a retailer’s site, and can be up and running in as little as 30 minutes.

We are thrilled to be working with Dollar Days and its network of members!

We are happy to announce today that Strands will be powering the online personal finance tool that BBVA, one of the world’s largest retail banks, will be offering its customers (see BBVA press release here).

Developed by BBVA and Strands, BBVA Tú cuentas (You count, in Spanish) is an innovative personal finance tool that allows online users to manage their personal finances better, offering friendly analysis tools to better understand spending and savings. A 100% customizable interface, personalized suggestions, and versions for the iPhone, Blackberry and Nokia phones are some of the unique characteristics of BBVA Tú cuentas, being offered to BBVA customers.

BBVA has 4.1 million online customers performing over 1.3 billion annual online transactions. Strands Social Recommender, a key component in the solution, will help BBVA better understand its customers’ needs and behavior, offering them personalized suggestions of financial and non-financial products.

BBVA Tú cuentas is launched today in private beta with the following features:

- Analysis of personal financial information. BBVA Tú cuentas displays a graphical representation of the customers’ financial health, break-down of their income and expenses, as well as their evolution through time. Charts help customers better understand their finances and see whether they have done better or worse than planned over time.

- Categorization of transactions. BBVA Tú cuentas organizes all transactions into a series of categories, and customers can also use personal tags if they prefer them. Having data well organized can help customers make better financial decisions.

- Comparison tools. Customers can tag themselves and BBVA Tú cuentas will compare them to similar customers. Offering meaningful comparisons with similar customers will help people better understand their personal finances and put them into context.

- Budget Goals. BBVA customers can set up their budget and keep their spending within the limits of what they can realistically afford. Additionally, they can choose to be notified if they happen to go over their set budget.

- Alerts. Customers can configure their own financial alerts and BBVA Tú cuentas will notify clients whenever they cross predefined limits. To round things off, customers can also combine these Alerts with their Budget Goals.

- Just for me. The collective knowledge of BBVA user base allows for BBVA Tú cuentas to offer an automatic selection of personalized suggestions for customers to make better decisions. (1) Practical financial and consumer tips to inform customers before they make money choices; (2) short list of most liked products matching each customer spending patterns; (3) financial products and services that may better address customer needs; (4) relevant facts and insightful aggregate stats based on community behavior.

- Aggregation of accounts. BBVA Tú cuentas allows BBVA clients to keep all of their financial data conveniently in one place. In addition to aggregating their BBVA accounts, customers can automatically add any other bank and utility accounts they may have.

Other key characteristics of the Strands personal finance solution are:

1.- A powerful widget platform enables maximum customization with minimum set-up time. Each of our 20 widgets is a little application that performs a specific feature. Clients can personalize each tab with the widgets they choose, to view the content they need.

2.- Powered by Strands Social Recommender, BBVA Tú cuentas provides users with the best personalized suggestions possible, helping them find new ways to save money and invest.

3.- It comes with 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.

BBVA 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.

We are thrilled to be working with them in this amazing solution!