On this page the following entries were made in the “personalization” category.
Archive for “personalization”
Apple.com adds federated search, recent searches, and ratings
While it was hard to miss that Apple.com received a complete redesign with this week’s WWDC events, the finer points of the site’s new functionality are now coming into the, erm… spotlight. Eagle-eyed TUAW readers have been commenting and reporting on a number of interesting new enhancements to apple.com’s abilities, such as the horizontal sub-navigation that Gruber mentioned on some of the product sites (try apple.com/mac to get an idea).
A really cool new (and long overdue) feature to searching Apple’s site is more or less the web-based equivalent of the Spotlight interface. As you can see, the search box is pinned to the top right of ever page at apple.com now, and running a search produces near-instant results in a drop-down menu style interface. A ‘View all search results’ option at the bottom of that menu displays the page I snapped for this post, complete with a more robust and categorized list of search results that can be expanded and collapsed, helping you find just what you need far more quickly. The site even appears to be using cookies to store a recent list of your searches, keeping them always accessible at the far right of this search results page.
Altogether these are some very, very welcome new tools for searching Apple’s exponentially growing product, information and support material. It should be noted, however, that the last update Apple made to their discussion forum still holds true, and that includes its own powerful search tools; this spotlight UI seems to apply only to the rest of apple.com.
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RSS in Plain English
A decent and fun what, why, and how of RSS
(Found on http://bokardo.com/)
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Specially Bred Mice May Hold Keys to Personalized Medicine
A panel of 36 mice could finally deliver the long-unfulfilled promise of personalized medicine.
The mice were specially bred to match the genetic makeup of most human genetic profiles, and should help scientists determine which drugs are dangerous — or more effective — for individuals before they reach the market.
“Imagine someone discovers a compound that prevents cancer,” said Jackson Laboratory geneticist Ken Paigen. “But suppose that in addition to preventing cancer, it has serious adverse effects in some percentage of the population. You’d sure like to know who could and who couldn’t use it.”
Personalized medicine promises to prevent some of those complications. Some custom treatments have slowly emerged in recent years. But Paigen and his colleagues say their 36 mice could open the floodgates. Taken together, the mouse panel roughly covers all the genetic variation in the human race. (Read More)
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Grocery stores are overwhelming for men, retailers piloting in-cart recommendations based on loyalty card history
Snippets from the article:
- U.S. men are doing more and more grocery shopping but retailers are still not doing much to make the trip any more enticing
- Men do represent a large part of grocery shopping dollars and they aren’t being very well accommodated … sales are being lost
- Men have difficulty finding items, forego buying rather than risk purchasing a substitute for an item on the grocery list and hesitate to ask for help if they can’t find an item
- Unlike women, male shoppers typically focus more on convenience than price, and retailers will need to cater to that
- The Shopping Buddy, a wireless computer on shopping carts alerts shoppers to certain items they might want using information from shopper loyalty cards
- Unlike women, men tend to hone in on the specific thing they want to buy instead of surveying the entire aisle… can be a problem for manufacturers and retailers trying to promote new products
- Great at picking out the stuff that they bought before. It’s the new stuff, or something new and different that a manufacturer is trying to promote, that they have trouble with
- Men also tend to bristle at the overwhelming number of choices in grocery aisles, with the cereal aisle being one prime example
- “One guy I thought was going to have a nervous breakdown in the cereal aisle,” Putnam said, adding that this man, in his early 30s, worked the night shift as a police officer in a dicey part of town and was otherwise used to stressful situations.
- Retailers still refer to their main customer as “she,” with women still doing the majority of the family shopping, so a major overhaul of stores to make them more attractive to men is not likely.
- But food retailers in general are focusing more and more on segmentation — tailoring store offerings to shoppers most likely to shop there or that they want to attract. This strategy could attract more male shoppers.
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CBS Buys Last.fm for $280 Million Cash
CBS Corp. said Wednesday it is buying Last.fm, a music-focused online social network, for $280 million in cash in a bid to attract younger viewers and listeners across its businesses.
Last.fm management, including founders Felix Miller, Martin Stiksel and Richard Jones, will continue to run the company independently, CBS said in a statement.
The acquisition follows CBS Interactive’s recent purchase of Wallstrip.com, an online financial news site, and investments in the online video site Joost and other online companies.
Founded in 2002, Last.fm now has more than 15 million active users. The site builds a profile of users’ musical tastes to make personalized recommendations and connect users who share similar tastes.
It also provides custom online radio streams and other music-related community features. (Read More)
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