A New Way to Analyze Web Users' Tastes

A New Way to Analyze Web Users’ Tastes

By KAREN KAPLAN

Aug. 16, 1999 12 AM PT

Online merchants rely on personalization technology to boost sales. For instance, when an Amazon.com customer looks up the latest John Grisham novel, “The Testament,” the site also recommends Tom Clancy’s “Rainbow Six.”

A Culver City start-up that is launching today will introduce a technology that could make those recommendations much more useful. Instead of trying to predict a shopper’s tastes based on data from just one site, TriVida’s so-called networked personalization technology uses information gathered at several sites to get a better idea about the customer’s overall interests. That way, a visitor to a gourmet food site could be advised to check out another site that sells high-end kitchen appliances.

TriVida will store shoppers’ preferences on a central server that its customers--e-commerce firms--can access over the Internet.

Technology and the Internet Business

Karen Kaplan

Karen Kaplan covers science and medical research for the Los Angeles Times. She has been a member of the science team since 2005, including 13 years as an editor. Her first decade at The Times was spent covering technology in the Business section as both a reporter and editor. She grew up in San Diego and is a graduate of MIT and Columbia University.

A New Way to Analyze Web Users’ Tastes

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