
 |
|
May 13, 2013
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
April 22, 2013
US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer
April 19, 2013
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy
Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds
April 17, 2013
Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom
Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
April 15, 2013
Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral
Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators
April 12, 2013
Mark Clayton: New cybersecurity bill: Privacy threat or crucial band-aid?
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jackie Robinson's Friend, Hank Greenberg; CNN's Jake Tapper; Texas County in the News is named for 19thC. Jewish soldier and Congressman
The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: FRUITY QUINOA STUFFED PEPPERS: A flavorful, colorful and edible vessel of delicately fluffy, mildly nutty filling combined with chewy apricots, tangy cherries, and crunchy pistachios
April 10, 2013
Peter Grier: North Korean missiles: Could US shoot them down?
Morgan Housel: Warning: Don't waste your capital being fooled by profit prophets
Donald Hensrud, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Take vitamin supplements with caution --- even approved, they may actually do damage
Eryn Brown: 74 DNA discoveries move cure closer for three cancers
April 8, 2013
Jonathan Tobin: What Part of No Preconditions Do American Jews Not Get?
Fred Weir: Is Putin finally trading his own party for a new power base?
|
| |
Jewish World Review
July 24, 2008
/ 21 Tamuz 5768
Online Shopping Gets a Rich(er) Relevance
By
Mark Kellner
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The direct marketing business has come quite a ways from the time when Asa
Montgomery Ward, a nineteenth-century railroad clerk, sent out a circular
advertising watches and other trinkets. But if you thought the Amazon.com Web site
is the ne plus ultra of personalized online commerce, you might want to reconsider.
There's more and better in the wings, one marketer says.
RichRelevance.com, a San Francisco-based firm headed by the man who refined Amazon's
product recommendation system, is moving to make your shopping experience even more
personal, while not compromising your privacy. The goal is admittedly commercial:
the firm wants to help online marketers sell more products. At the same time, they
hope to make your shopping experience a bit more life-like.
"The real power in shopping for a consumer is [in] 'turning my shopping experience
into something I enjoy,'" said David Selinger, founder and chief executive of the
firm. A Stanford University computer science graduate, Mr. Selinger led the team
that boosted Amazon.com's profits by over $50 million in 2003 through enhancing the
way recommendations are generated for online shoppers. He later went to
Overstock.com, and has continued to refine the process there and elsewhere. Now,
RichRelevance is serving companies that do at least $10 million a year in online
sales. Interestingly, the one client he's willing to name is Sears, namesake of the
early mail order catalog pioneers who followed Montgomery Ward in creating an
industry.
Making online shopping more enjoyable involves more than a little science. Anyone
can click on a Website's catalog listing and, presumably, find an item and buy it.
But, in real world stores and malls, few shoppers are merely linear beings who make
a beeline for an item. When we go to a Barnes & Noble outlet, for example, we'll
look at a Harry Potter volume, then check out a cookbook or the music section. Mr.
Selinger argues that, online, we should be steered towards doing the same thing.
A word about privacy is in order here: RichRelevance will help track what you look
at and where you are computing from (are you logging in from McLean or Marlow
Heights?), but the firm's software observes privacy laws: the tracking and analysis
is to guide you towards products, not to poke around your life. With such
parameters, I have no problem in accepting online recommendations, and neither would
most consumers.
"We bring to the table a scientific approach to 'how do we find products that would
be relevant to the customer?'," Mr. Selinger explained. The RichRelevance software
and proprietary algorithms are paired with the knowledge an online seller already
has. If, for example, Sears notes that customers looking at refrigerators online
will also likely buy baby stuff -- growing families may well need a new icebox,
after all -- then that inside knowledge is linked to the formula.
"That knowledge lives in the merchandising group," Mr. Selinger said of a client
such as Sears. In designing services for the online marketer, he believes he is
"bringing the art and the science together, the science being the algorithms in the
software and the art being the merchandising knowledge."
If all this suggests the sci-fi flick "Minority Report," with its quick-change
billboards keyed to the consumer walking by, think again: "We're not shooting for
that level of experience," Mr. Selinger said. "You can't really predict the next
thing.:
Instead, he asserted, "we see this as a natural [online] extension to the way you
walk about a store. You're in the kitchen area and looking at a refrigerator, you
might look at a freezer next, or a different brand, or you might head over to the
baby section."
With up-and-down-and-maybe-up-again gas prices, plus the hassle of going to stores
and malls during peak times, having a better online shopping experience seems like
an appealing prospect. Mr. Selinger said RichRelevance expects to announce other
large customers in the coming months. It strikes me as a service worth checking out,
if your business is of an appropriate size.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.
Archives
© 2008, News World Communications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of The Washington Times. Visit the paper at http://www.washingtontimes.com
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|