onsdag 17. februar 2010

Genieo launches automatically generated personal homepages to the public

There’s a host of companies offering personalized homepages for web users. However, personalizing these sites can take time and energy. Users often have to upload preferences such as RSS feeds or widgets.
Israel based startup Genieo is looking to change that by launching the public beta version of a desktop application that automatically generates a personalized homepage based on your browsing activity. It uses a new technology called micro behavioral targeting (MBT).
The company explains, “MBT continuously studies the user’s individual topics of interest from his browsing activity, follows them as they form and evolve, and accordingly forms connections with sources of information across the web that are most relevant to the user’s interests.”
It takes Genieo about 20 minutes to read through and scan your past browsing history and preferences. The outcome is a newspaper-like homepage that highlights news, blogs, RSS feeds, videos and update streams from Twitter and Facebook. Users do have the option of blocking or determining an article is of no interest, which will alter the system for future inbound content.
One of the more interesting aspects of Genieo is that the application does not collect any private information like other personalized homepages where server interaction is required. In addition, Genieo disables itself once a secure website, such as email, is accessed so that no personal information is indexed.
Sorry Mac users, but Genieo currently only works on Microsoft Windows via Internet Explorer and Firefox. The company does note that additional browser support is planned for the future. For those who might need a language outside of English, the application is compatible with French, Italian, German, Russian, Spanish and Hebrew.
Genieo faces competition from several web services including iGoogle and NetVibes. However, neither service automatically generates preferences.
The company was founded in 2008 and is privately backed. It recently secured $3 million in funding from unnamed angel investors, according to TechCrunch.

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