Sector RoadMap: Content personalization in 2013

Table of Contents

  1. Summary
  2. Introduction and catalyst
  3. Disruption vectors
    1. Post-programming curation
    2. The tyranny of choice
    3. The recommendation gold rush
    4. The demise of patience
    5. The social graph
    6. The interest graph
    7. Other disruptive clouds on the horizon
  4. Company analysis
    1. Gravity
    2. Demandbase
    3. TruCentric
    4. BloomReach
    5. Rovi
    6. Outbrain
    7. Taboola
  5. Personalization adoption and outlook
  6. Key takeaways
  7. About Mark Mulligan

1. Summary

Content owners, whether they are publishers, retailers, or marketers, are always looking for new ways to deliver a unique experience to their customers. We call this content personalization. Website customization and promoting the most popular or contextually relevant items are tried and true practices. Retailers like Amazon have long been using collaborative filtering, anticipating interest by comparing purchases across different buyers. But now, cost-effective big data analysis allows content owners to study behavioral and social media data. Because of that, new personalization pioneers are emerging.

The key trends in personalization — that is, the disruption vectors that smart companies will drive and ride to success — over the next 12 to 24 months are led by a collection of technologies that we call post-programming curation. These technologies use the best of behavioral tracking, collaborative filtering, audience targeting, and dynamic content presentation. Would-be personalization leaders will have to accommodate what we call the tyranny of choice and avoid too much temptation from the recommendation gold rush. Impatient audiences will be a disruption, but it will take tech vendors some time to properly exploit users’ social and interest graphs.

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Source: GigaOM Research, April 2013

In this GigaOM Research Sector RoadMapTM we look at a variety of personalization-technology vendors with different specialties. Key highlights include:

  • A newcomer, Gravity, and Demandbase, a company that specializes in B2B marketing, appear well positioned to take advantage of personalization disruption vectors.
  • Another new player, TruCentric, is applying customer valuation and merchandising techniques to content personalization in an intriguing fashion.
  • More-established recommendation engine and content promotion networks like Rovi, Outbrain, and Taboola and ecommerce specialist BloomReach are also on the twenty-first-century personalization RoadMap.

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