Customised browsing: brought to you by Peter Gabriel

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 05 June 2008 10:38

Your IT - Entertainment

Music legend Peter Gabriel might seem an unlikely candidate to launch a personalised entertainment content filtering system based on Bayesian mathematics, but apparently he's also something to a technology pioneer to boot.

He is reported to be the visionary behind (and also an investor in) The Filter, billed as "an intelligent, interactive portal designed to help users discover new music, film and web video...[by providing] an holistic approach to filtering out irrelevant content and filtering in content based on an individual's taste and mood." The service will be extended to other content areas such as books, TV and podcasts making the technology "a filter to everyday life."

The Filter has been developed by British software company Exabre which is backed by a number of high profile investors, including Peter Gabriel's Real World Group and Eden Ventures. According to Gabriel "Traditionally, we have had help from people who are more knowledgeable than ourselves, or whose taste we trust, and today we have expert systems to help guide us. The Filter integrates the best of both approaches, man and machine, and takes data learned in one area to help guide in another.

"For example, data about musical taste can help produce better selections in film, or someone else's tastes - friend, celebrity, whatever - can be mashed up with your own to provide new and interesting discoveries."

Users who visit The Filter and undertake a brief taste profiling exercise will receive a daily homepage of music, film, and web video recommendations, all personalised to their taste. As they use The Filter it will learn and therefore improve the levels of personalisation, it is claimed (But if classical music is your bag, don't bother: it has no such category)

The site also encourages the user to import their online profiles from other relevant sites, such as Last.fm or Flixster, to gain even more evidence about their entertainment tastes.
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