The good folks at Criteo just alerted me to a neat widget they’ve created called “AutoRoll.” I thought I’d give it a test spin.
Criteo is a recommendation engine, and AutoRoll is a product designed using their open API. The idea is much like Amazon’s “If you like this book, you might also like these other ones…,” recommendations, with blog substituted for book. The idea is that by gathering and analyzing information on which blogs people are visiting, AutoRoll can recommend other blogs you might be interested in. If 50 people who like my blog also spend a lot of time at, say, the Sacramento Real Estate blog, then that blog will automatically begin appearing on my AutoRoll. Pretty neat.
Three questions I have:
- Compared to MyBlogLog, Is this different enough and cool enough to gain traction?
- How defensible is this concept — ie. what would it take Yahoo (which now owns MyBlogLog) to add this sort of functionality should it prove popular?
- Is there enough space in our sidebars for yet another handy little widget? (Mary McKnight at RSSPieces asks the same question, as does about-to-join Inman Joel Burslem.
Final note: The snapshot to the left is what the widget looks like on my blog. The blog recommendations currently there are, I believe, basically placeholders for now. There aren’t yet enough people using the widget for high-quality recommendations.
Tags: AutoRoll, Criteo, Industry, MyBlogLog, Real estate
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Peter // Mar 21, 2007 at 9:49 am
Hi Kevin,
Thank you for using our Autoroll widget and for your post about it. Project manager @ Criteo, I will try to answer your 3 questions
1. The main difference we have with MyBlogLog is that their widget displays “who read your blog”, our Autoroll widget displays “WHAT you readers like to read”. Our widget could be complementary with MyBlogLog. Autoroll is a nice blogroll that gives to your readers some links to discover, links to blog they should like. Moreover, your blog will appear on the Autorolls of other similar blogs, thus creating a qualified traffic toward your blog. Interesting for bloggers, interesting for readers
2. Our concept is based on our Criteo recommendation engine which is the result of 2 years of R&D. Developing such a system is really specific and it’s our main activity, we sell our technology to e-commerce sites and portals all around the world.
3. About space in sidebar, I just can’t discuss the fact that it’s another widget, but Autoroll is customizable to fit the best with you blog sidebar. And more customization and styled
To finish, you are right, Criteo recommendation engine need time and datas to be more efficient, giving more relevant blog to your Autoroll. It should be better in 1 or 2 weeks, depending on your traffic.
If you have any question or comment, don’t hesitate to contact me. Best regards.
Peter
2 John Lockwood // Mar 27, 2007 at 8:34 am
I think this is a wonderful idea. I especially like the part where you linked to my site as an example!
Thanks for the link.
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