Andromedia Inc. delivered LikeMinds
Personalization Server 3.0, an update to its e-commerce optimization app.
The company said the new version “makes the most of every click” by utilizing
virtually any source of consumer behavior data — online or off-line,
implicit or explicit, real-time or historical, transactional or navigational
— to personalize every interaction from the first click to the final
checkout.
Server 3.0 introduces two new personalization engines: The Purchase Engine
and the Clickstream Engine. The Purchase Engine enables e-commerce vendors to
leverage off-line and/or online purchase history data to make personalized
recommendations.
The Clickstream Engine builds customer profiles in real time, based on
navigational data gathered as customers browse a site. This helps an
e-commerce vendor who lacks purchase history data and doesn’t want to force
users to fill out lengthy questionnaires to still offer personalized content and product
recommendations.
The Clickstream and Purchase Engines complement the Preference Engine and
Product Matching Engine which were built into previous versions of LikeMinds
Personalization Server. The Preference Engine leverages explicitly stated
preferences. The Product
Matching Engine makes recommendations based on product similarities, enabling
vendors to immediately recommend new products, before customers have seen,
rated or bought them.
Server 3.0 also features The LikeMinds Admin Center, a new GUI-based tool
that enables administrators to monitor server status, adjust configuration
parameters, and set rules on how to apply personalization to specific
categories of products or users.
“Online shoppers don’t have the patience to navigate through vast product
catalogs,” said Steve Kanzler, Andromedia vice president of marketing. “By
recommending personally relevant products, LikeMinds quickly escorts Web
visitors to products they are most likely to buy.”
LikeMinds Personalization Server 3.0 requires Windows NT 4.0 running on
Pentium-class PCs or Solaris 2.6 running on Sun SPARC stations or Ultra SPARC
workstations, any CGI-compliant Web server, and ODBC-compliant databases
including Oracle 8 and SQL Server 7.0. Pricing starts at $25,000.
Initial users include All Media Group, Checkout.com, Diva Systems Corp.,
HearMusic, Levi Strauss & Co., Medscape, Office Depot Online, NetFlix and
West Coast Video. Also, Andromedia said relationship management company BroadVision will utilize LikeMinds
Personalization Server 3.0 in concert with its matching agent and rules-based
personalization technology.