Later today, content recommendation and discovery software builder Strands will announce that its personal finance subsidiary moneyStrands has teamed up with Savings.com to bring personalized online coupon recommendations to the company’s personal budgeting & online money management platform.

Thanks to this partnership, moneyStrands users will now see a new widget dubbed “Special Offers” in the web app (under the “Just for Me” tab), which will display a number of personalized online coupons from a variety of stores and brands, recommended to each user based on his or her spending pattern as recorded on moneyStrands.

Bringing web deals to a place where people manage their personal finances seems like a solid idea to me – particularly in a recession – so I’m surprised to note Strands is actually the first to incorporate custom coupons into a money management app. If its recommendation technology works as advertised and the feature gets noticed sufficiently by its users, this could be a beneficial partnership for both companies and a precursor to similar deals with similar service providers like Mint, Wesabe and the likes.

To refresh your memory: moneyStrands was born out of Strands’ acquisitions of both Expensr and NetworthIQ back in May 2008. Savings.com has been around a bit longer: it was founded in 2004 and currently breaks about $10 million in revenues according to Mahalo CEO (and TechCrunch50 co-host) Jason Calacanis, who joined the Santa Monica, CA-based company’s board earlier this Summer.

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The cutbacks continue, even at seemingly healthy startups. Social recommendation engine Strands let exactly 10 percent, or 14 people go (7 in the U.S. and 7 in Spain), the company confirms. Strands has raised a total of $55 million, still employs 125 people, and is hiring for other positions. It also just announced a mobile version for Nokia S60 phones.

Qik, which lets you stream live video from your cell phone, also laid off about 10 percent of its employees, which in its case amounted to five people. We got a tip that the reason for the layoffs is because the startup could not raise a $10 to $15 million round, but a spokesperson says that is not true and that we should stay tuned. We hope its not true because we love Qik. The company so far has raised only $4 million, but its investors include Marc Benioff and Marc Andreessen.

Also this week, Akamai is laying off 110 people (7 percent), KLA-Tencor is cutting 900 (15 percent), four people lost their jobs at Engine Yard (Update: originally mis-reported as 66 percent–it’s only 4 percent), and 7 at PC Magazine, which is ceasing its print edition.

We’ve added all of these to the Layoff Tracker, which is now up to 77,151 layoffs across 225 technology companies big and small.

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The recommendation engine Strands has released a new “Plug-and Play” product recommendation service that will allow online retailers to generate Amazon-like recommendations. eCommerce providers can implement the service through either the site’s API or with a widget plug-in, and Strands says that setup should take as little as 30 minutes.

Earlier this month Strands launched its flagship site, Strands.com, which sets out to “help people discover new stuff”. The new plugin aims to do the same for external eCommerce sites, while increasing profits in the process. The new service will be available with either a flat monthly fee or through a revenue share program.

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Strands has made a second recruitment in its effort to develop a Mint competitor called moneyStrands that leverages the same recommendation engine behind its video and music products.

Just over two weeks ago Strands acquired Expensr, and now the company is announcing its acquisition of NetworthIQ. Both are personal finance applications that Strands wanted mostly for their human capital, but also for some of their technology assets. The terms of both deals were not disclosed.

While the media has yet to get its hands on moneyStrands and give it a spin, the product has been in development since December and it marks Strands’ attempt to aggressively apply its recommendation technology to new fields.

Just how that technology will be applied to personal finance is not altogether clear. The core Strands technology digests and analyzes behavioral information to make its recommendations. This is fairly straightforward when it comes to music: frequently play two or more songs with one another and Strands will learn something about how you prefer to experience music.

Apparently this technique will transfer over into personal finance by analyzing the sets of purchases that consumers make and then recommending how they can make better purchases. This analysis will not only consider the various purchases that one consumer makes; it will also compare these purchases to those made by others.

Aside from detailed personalized recommendations, Strands hopes to differentiate itself from competitors like Mint and Wesabe by providing superior mobile support and widget integration.

Strands is mum on the fate of NetworthIQ as a stand alone service, but I think we can safely assume it will shut down eventually as its team focuses on the development of moneyStrands.

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