Facebook, Pandora Lead Rise of Recommendation Engines

Over the past decade, recommendation engines have become quietly ubiquitous. At the appropriate moment — generally when you're about to consummate a retail purchase — they appear at your shoulder, whispering suggestively in your ear. Amazon was the pioneer of automated recommendations, but Netflix, Apple, YouTube and TiVo have them too. A good recommendation engine is worth a lot of money. According to a report by industry analyst Forrester, one-third of customers who notice recommendations on an e-commerce site wind up buying something based on them.

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