Global destination guide Time Out wants to improve how it recommends services and products to users after acquiring recommendation software firm LikeCube.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Time Out says the acquisition will allow it integrate the LikeCube software into its existing platform so a user’s “taste graph” can better deliver ideas as they browse through its existing editorial content.
The data comes from a user and the wider readership’s filters, with the LikeCube system learning about habits and preferences to produce better recommendations.
LikeCube’s biggest customer to date is European recommendation service Qype.
Time Out says there are “no immediate plans to stop working with existing clients” as the likeCube technology is integrated into the service.
Three LikeCubers have joined Time Out as part of the acquisition: co-founders Eleanor Ford and Daniele Turi, who created the business in 2006, alongside development whizz Ismael Juma.
Ford says:
“We are delighted to see personalisation and a renewed focus on innovation at the heart of Time Out. Our starting point at LikeCube was to allow users to discover the most relevant places, based on what they like and what people like them like, with Time Out this will become a reality.”
The acquisition is being touted by Time Out Group, the umbrella organisation in which its destination guide products in 35 cities around the world sit, as a “rapid progression towards consolidation as a digital media group” under CEO David King.
Here is an interview Hotel-Blogs carried out with Ford in 2009:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C3aO9xxtvc
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