Personalization
Encyclopedia
Personalization involves using technology to accommodate the differences between individuals. Once confined mainly to the Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

, it is increasingly becoming a factor in education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, health care
Health care
Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...

 (i.e. personalized medicine), television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

, and in both "business to business" and "business to consumer" settings.

Web pages

Web page
Web page
A web page or webpage is a document or information resource that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a monitor or mobile device. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext...

s are personalized based on the characteristics (interests, social category, context, ...) of an individual. Personalization implies that the changes are based on implicit data, such as items purchased or pages viewed. The term customization is used instead when the site only uses explicit data such as ratings or preferences.

On an intranet
Intranet
An intranet is a computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to securely share any part of an organization's information or network operating system within that organization. The term is used in contrast to internet, a network between organizations, and instead refers to a network...

 or B2E Enterprise Web portals, personalization is often based on user attributes such as department, functional area, or role. The term customization in this context refers to the ability of users to modify the page layout or specify what content should be displayed.

There are three categories of personalization:
  1. Profile / Group based
  2. Behaviour based (also known as Wisdom of the Crowds)
  3. Collaboration based


Web personalization models include rules-based filtering
Logic programming
Logic programming is, in its broadest sense, the use of mathematical logic for computer programming. In this view of logic programming, which can be traced at least as far back as John McCarthy's [1958] advice-taker proposal, logic is used as a purely declarative representation language, and a...

, based on "if this, then that" rules processing, and collaborative filtering
Collaborative filtering
Collaborative filtering is the process of filtering for information or patterns using techniques involving collaboration among multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources, etc. Applications of collaborative filtering typically involve very large data sets...

, which serves relevant material to customers by combining their own personal preferences with the preferences of like-minded others. Collaborative filtering works well for books, music, video, etc. However, it does not work well for a number of categories such as apparel, jewelry, cosmetics, etc. Recently, another method, "Prediction Based on Benefit", has been proposed for products with complex attributes such as apparel.

There are three broad methods of personalization:
  1. Implicit
  2. Explicit
  3. Hybrid


With implicit personalization the personalization is performed by the web page (or information system) based on the different categories mentioned above. With explicit personalization, the web page (or information system) is changed by the user using the features provided by the system.
Hybrid personalization combines the above two approaches to leverage the best of both worlds.

Many companies offer services for web recommendation and email recommendation that are based on personalization or anonymously collected user behaviors. Following the example of Certona, the online retailing industry has been early adopters of 3rd party personalization tools offered by companies like PredictiveIntent, MyBuys, Barilliance, iGoDigital, 4-Tell and Amazon.com. Other 3rd party vendors like Choice Stream or Vignette bring personalization to content and display advertising.

Web personalization is closely linked to the notion of Adaptive hypermedia
Adaptive hypermedia
In contrast to traditional e-learning/electronic learning, e-business, and e-government systems, whereby all users are offered or even directed a standard series of hyperlinks, adaptive hypermedia tailors what the user sees to the learner's goals, abilities, interests, knowledge, etc...

(AH). The main difference is that the former would usually work on what is considered an Open Corpus Hypermedia, whilst the latter would traditionally work on Closed Corpus Hypermedia. However, recent research directions in the AH domain take both closed and open corpus into account. Thus, the two fields are closely inter-related.

Personalization is also being considered for use in less overtly commercial applications to improve the user experience online. Remote control
Remote control
A remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the television device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance.The remote control is usually contracted to remote...

 manufacturer Ruwido
Ruwido
Ruwido is an Austrian based broadcast electronics company that manufactures input devices for television, specialising in universal remote controls, set-top boxes, IPTV platforms and keyboards that use multi-touch navigation and infrared technology to operate digital television and digital media...

 developed an interactive IPTV
IPTV
Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...

 platform in 2010 called Voco Media, which controls digital media
Digital media
Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...

 in the living room
Living room
A living room, also known as sitting room, lounge room or lounge , is a room for entertaining adult guests, reading, or other activities...

 using web personalization. It uses personalization as a tool that supports modern forms of TV usage, by allowing users to create different profiles for each family member, personalized menu structures and fingerprint recognition.

Digital media

Another aspect of personalization is the increasing prevalence of open data
Open Data
Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "Open" movements such as open source, open...

 on the Web. Many companies make their data available on the Web via APIs, web services, and open data
Open Data
Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "Open" movements such as open source, open...

 standards. Ordnance Survey Open Data This data is structured to allow it to be inter-connected and re-used by third parties.

Data available from a user’s personal social graph
Social graph
The social graph is a term coined by scientists working in the social areas of graph theory. It has been described as "the global mapping of everybody and how they're related"...

 can be accessed by third-party application software
Application software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...

 to be suited to fit the personalized web page
Web page
A web page or webpage is a document or information resource that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a monitor or mobile device. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext...

 or information appliance
Information appliance
In general terms, an information appliance or information device is any machine or device that is usable for the purposes of computing, telecommunicating, reproducing, and presenting encoded information in myriad forms and applications....

.

Current open data
Open Data
Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "Open" movements such as open source, open...

 standards on the Web include:
  1. DataPortability
    DataPortability
    Data portability is the ability for people to reuse their data across interoperable applications - the ability for people to be able to control their identity, media and other forms of personal data...

  2. OpenID
    OpenID
    OpenID is an open standard that describes how users can be authenticated in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for services to provide their own ad hoc systems and allowing users to consolidate their digital identities...

  3. OpenSocial
    OpenSocial
    OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces for web-based social network applications, developed by Google along with MySpace and a number of other social networks.It was released November 1, 2007....

  4. Attention Profiling Mark-up Language (APML)

Mobile Phones

Over time mobile phones have seen an increased emphasis placed on user personalization. Far from the black and white screens and monophonic ringtones of the past, phones now offer interactive wallpapers and MP3 TruTones. In the UK and Asia, WeeMees have become popular. WeeMees are three-dimensional characters that are used as wallpaper and respond to the tendencies of the user. Video Graphics Array (VGA) picture quality allows people to change their background with ease without sacrificing quality. All of these services are downloaded through the provider with the goal to make the user feel connected to the phone.

Television

Personalization on the TV can occur on TV apps or on the set top box user interface. Most forms of personalization occur with recommendations. For instance, a TV app may recommend certain TV shows based on user behaviour or collaborative filtering
Collaborative filtering
Collaborative filtering is the process of filtering for information or patterns using techniques involving collaboration among multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources, etc. Applications of collaborative filtering typically involve very large data sets...

.

Print media

In print media, ranging from magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

s to promotional publications, personalization uses databases of individual recipients’ information. Not only does the written document address itself by name to the reader, but the advertising is targeted to the recipient’s demographics or interests using fields within the database, such as "first name", "last name", "company", etc.

The term "personalization" should not be confused with variable data, which is a much more granular method of marketing that leverages both images and text with the medium, not just fields within a database. Although personalized children's books are created by companies who are using and leveraging all the strengths of variable data printing (VDP)
Variable Data Printing
Variable-data printing is a form of digital printing, including on-demand printing, in which elements such as text, graphics and images may be changed from one printed piece to the next, without stopping or slowing down the printing process and using information from a database or external file...

. This allows for full image and text variability within a printed book.
With the advent of online 3D printing services such as Shapeways and Ponoko we are seeing personalization enter into the realms of product design.

Promotional merchandise

Promotional items industry (mug
Mug
A mug is a sturdily built type of cup often used for drinking hot beverages, such as coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. Mugs, by definition, have handles and often hold a larger amount of fluid than other types of cup. Usually a mug holds approximately 12 fluid ounces of liquid; double a tea cup...

s, T-shirt
T-shirt
A T-shirt is a style of shirt. A T-shirt is buttonless and collarless, with short sleeves and frequently a round neck line....

s, keychain
Keychain
A keychain or key chain is a small chain, usually made from metal or plastic, that connects a small item to a keyring. The length of a keychain allows an item to be used more easily than if connected directly to a keyring...

s, ball
Ball
A ball is a round, usually spherical but sometimes ovoid, object with various uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can also be used for simpler activities, such as catch, marbles and juggling...

s etc.) are regularly personalized. Personalized children’s storybooks — wherein the child becomes the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

, with the name and image of the child personalized — are also popular. Personalized CDs for children also exist. With the advent of digital printing
Digital printing
Digital printing refers to methods of printing from a digital based image directly to a variety of media. It usually refers to professional printing where small run jobs from desktop publishing and other digital sources are printed using large format and/or high volume laser or inkjet printers...

, personalized calendars that start in any month, Birthday Cards, cards, e-cards, posters and Photo Book can also be obtained.

Mass personalization

Mass personalization is defined as custom tailoring by a company in accordance with its end users tastes and preferences http://www.answers.com/personalization&r=67. The main difference between mass customization and mass personalization is that customization is the ability for a company to give its customers an opportunity to create and choose product to certain specifications, but does have limits. Clothing industry has also adopted the mass customization paradigm and some footwear retailers are producing mass customized shoes.

Behavioral targeting
Behavioral targeting
Behavioral targeting is a technique used by online publishers and advertisers to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns.Behavioral targeting uses information collected on an individual's web-browsing behavior, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made, to select...

 represents a concept that is similar to mass personalization.

See also

  • Adaptation (computer science)
    Adaptation (Computer Science)
    The term “adaptation” in computer science refers to a process, in which an interactive system adapts its behaviour to individual users based on information acquired about its user and its environment.-The need for adaptation:...

  • Adaptive hypermedia
    Adaptive hypermedia
    In contrast to traditional e-learning/electronic learning, e-business, and e-government systems, whereby all users are offered or even directed a standard series of hyperlinks, adaptive hypermedia tailors what the user sees to the learner's goals, abilities, interests, knowledge, etc...

  • Bespoke
    Bespoke
    Bespoke is a term employed in a variety of applications to mean an item custom-made to the buyer's specification...

  • Behavioral targeting
    Behavioral targeting
    Behavioral targeting is a technique used by online publishers and advertisers to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns.Behavioral targeting uses information collected on an individual's web-browsing behavior, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made, to select...

  • Collaborative filtering
    Collaborative filtering
    Collaborative filtering is the process of filtering for information or patterns using techniques involving collaboration among multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources, etc. Applications of collaborative filtering typically involve very large data sets...

  • Recommendation system
    Recommendation system
    Recommender systems, recommendation systems, recommendation engines, recommendation frameworks, recommendation platforms or simply recommender form or work from a specific type of information filtering system technique that attempts to recommend information items Recommender systems, recommendation...

  • Mass customization
    Mass customization
    Mass customization, in marketing, manufacturing, call centres and management, is the use of flexible computer-aided manufacturing systems to produce custom output...

  • Preorder Economy
    Preorder Economy
    A preorder economy is a type of proposed future economy where the exact demand for goods is known ahead of time, before any material production takes place...

  • User modeling
    User modeling
    User modeling is a subdivision of human–computer interaction and describes theprocess of building up and modifying a user model. The main goal of user modeling is customization and adaptation of systems to the user's specific needs. The system needs to "say the 'right' thing at the 'right' time in...

  • Personalized learning
  • Real-time Marketing
    Real-time marketing
    Real-time marketing is marketing performed "on-the-fly" to determine an appropriate or optimal approach to a particular customer at a particular time and place...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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