Recommendations engine Loomia has signed deals with the Wall Street Journal, CNET, and NBC to provide users of those companies’ news websites with recommendations based on what their Facebook friends are reading.
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Readers of these publications who are also Facebook users with Loomia’s SeenThis? application installed will see a list of recommended news articles like the one seen to the right. These recommendations are in addition to the ones typically made by the news sites, and they are derived completely from what your other SeenThis?-using friends on Facebook have been reading on the site. The so-called “social annotation line” below each headline gives users a sense of how the recommendation was generated.
Loomia co-founder and CTO David Marks says that there are several factors that go into determining whether a recommendation should be made. Of course, a user must actually visit an article before it can be considered for recommendation, but other factors such as link clicks are also taken into consideration. If a user explicitly shares an item on Facebook through Loomia, the behavior will show the strongest preference for an item. As for how the system decides which of your friends’ articles are most appropriate to show you, SeenThis? considers which Facebook groups and networks you are part of, in addition to which articles you have read personally.
Sound a lot like Facebook’s own Beacon? Well that’s because it is…but it also isn’t. With Loomia, all of the data is anonymized so there is no fear of revealing your reading habits to others. Loomia’s SeenThis? system also inverts the Beacon concept by providing social recommendations outside of Facebook and on partner sites themselves, in addition to the other way around (the SeenThis? application within Facebook will let you see what your friends have been reading across Loomia’s partner sites). Finally, SeenThis? differs by focusing on news article recommendations and not purchases from places like Amazon. Don’t expect to see a scarf recommendation from Loomia while browsing Amazon anytime soon.
When pressed on whether he’s concerned that Facebook could extend Beacon’s capabilities to include off-site recommendations, Marks responded by saying that content partners actually have an incentive to work with a third party company like Loomia when integrating social recommendation features. If they were to partner with Facebook directly, they would then have to partner will every other social network individually as well. With Loomia, they need to establish only one business relationship and the SeenThis? application will then aggregate information from across all participating social networks.
Oh yea, and about that WSJ subscription wall - Facebook users will be able to read any WSJ articles recommended to them for free.
Update: Marks wanted to add to the distinctions between SeenThis? and Beacon by emphasizing that SeenThis? is not an advertisement network like Beacon. Whereas with Beacon advertisers essentially pay Facebook for the opportunity to participate in the on-site “recommendations” by Facebook users, no one is paying Loomia to advertise on Facebook. He also emphasizes that 95% of SeenThis?’s usage takes place outside of Facebook, even though the application within Facebook serves as a destination for recommendations.
here’s my take on the topic:
http://www.centernetworks.com/.....h-facebook
there are just too many reasons why this won’t work that well.
@allen - I think the “Connect to your Facebook button” displayed next to news articles could be the best thing going for them in terms of driving user adoption. Like many Facebook apps, SeenThis will only work if at least several of each user’s friends have installed it, so a prominent button advertising the service outside of the FB app directory could do the trick. I think it does benefit from the fact that you can “set it and forget it” — once you install SeenThis, you don’t ever have to think about it again, and there’s the chance you’ll derive benefit when perusing WSJs in the future. As for whether the WSJ (or CNET or NBC) appeal to Facebook users, I wouldn’t doubt it appeals to many of them given how the demographics are shifting. And hey, even college students like the WSJ.
good points Mark - I wonder if you “install” it on wsj, does it roll over to cnet, etc?
Facebook usage is a passing fad, evident by its really high turnover. That is, nearly everybody registers at Facebook at some point, but many of these accounts are eventually completely abandoned or placed on eternal hold. Facebook advocates exploit this turnover to wow spectators by confusing ‘number of users’ with ‘number of registrations’, which of course measure completely different things.
Loomia has a good concept but should implement it a different way, without using Facebook.
@allen - Yep, that was my impression.
randy, you are old. just because facebook numbers are inflated doesn’t mean they aren’t huge.
Does anyone knows if loomia is using the JavaScript Client Library for FB api for this?
@randy - Facebook’s traffic trend tells a different story.
I think this is probably one of the best uses of the social graph since the online social network itself. Not this specific implementation but the fact that social confirmation is being used to feature pieces of content while maintaining a level of anonymity .
If I knew people “closest to me” (without knowing specifically who they were) all liked a particular article or song, I’d give it a read/listen. I could care less how many people “dugg” a particular article - it’s WHO those people are that matter to me. This takes the Beacon concept and executes it just right.
The fact that it’s behind the WSJ pay-wall has me a bit perturbed but I’m hoping Rupert comes to his sense and lets WSJ’s content go free. But that’s another story…
In any case, we’re finally heading in the right direction with respect to utilizing the social graph while maintaining a level of privacy.
Well done!
Hi, I’m one of the developers of SeenThis at Loomia and I’m happy to answer your questions:
@allen: (Good questions)
> how many Facebook’rs have enough friends to make this valuable?
You can get “Group” and “Network” level recommendations very quickly, even if your friends aren’t using the app yet. For friend-level use, you *do* need 1-2 friends to be using the app to get the most value (the more the better).
> how many Facebook’rs have enough friends who also read the WSJ site to make this (useful)
The question is a good one — the app wouldn’t work as well as a single-site. There are now a bunch of sites representing different demographics using SeenThis , which is one of the key elements of making this work.
To echo Mark H’s comment, Facebook demographics are indeed shifting to include a much wider audience today than even 12 months ago.
> it’s opt-in, who will bother installing it? & I wonder if you “install” it on wsj, does it roll over to cnet, etc?
Yes, it does. Once you’ve installed the app, it keeps working across sites so the effort involved is minimal. You can then use the settings page to control use on individual sites if you like.
(@jon)
> Does anyone knows if loomia is using the JavaScript Client Library for FB api for this?
We are not yet using the JS client library for the FB API, but are taking a look at it now.
Thanks again for your questions…
Cheers,
-D
It was indeed a nice set of partners!
I’d say that this is one of the few actually useful apps on facebook. Nice job.
Replace facebook with LinkedIn and you’ll have a winning formula, particularly with the WSJ initiative.
Video Interview with David Marks
Know a little more about Loomia and Seen This:
Video Interview With David Marks of Loomia