Many in the industry think so, myself included, which is why I have accepted a last-minute invitation to attend Recommender Systems 2007 (October 19-20) in Minneapolis. (And remember I’m based in Germany, so I’m packing as we speak.) It’s a bit hectic but well worth it. The two-day conference promises the perfect balance of theory and practice, featuring a special series of Industry Panels to discuss the value of recommenders and, more importantly, where the industry should invest to get the most out of this cutting-edge technology.

Executives from companies including Yahoo, MyStrands, Ask.com, Aggregate Knowledge, Unilever, eBay Research and Findory will no doubt have some valuable insights to share – both in panels and in delegate dinners – which I will summarize here on the site. I’m especially keen to hear what Krishna Bharat, a Principal Scientist at Google, will have to say about the business impact when companies can suggest content that users will likely find genuinely relevant and useful. Add social media and networking to the equation (users tend to share recommendations with their peers) and this technology can be transformational.

And it’s not limited to the online Internet. The last months have seen mobile search companies including FAST and MCN snap up recommendation companies. (These milestone developments are covered in-depth on this site – and I urge you to check out the exclusive podcasts with Xiam and MyStands, two companies that have placed recommendation at the core of their offers.)

Well, another couple of hours until I have my last interview of the day with InfoSpace. The next you hear from me, I’ll be in the Twin Cities….

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Mobile Search, Mobile Social Networking, Recommendation, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.