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IBM: IBM and CyberAgent Create Smart Web Technology to Personalize Bloggers' Experiences

^{Published on 2009-02-20 14:11:38, Last Modified on 2009-02-20 14:12:26 - Market Wire}
 

TOKYO--(Marketwire - February 20, 2009) - IBM (NYSE: [ IBM ]) and CyberAgent (TSE: 4751) -- one of the largest Internet media companies in Japan -- have developed technology that analyzes both blog content and bloggers' behavior to recommend blogs of interest, and to create cohesive communities around individual blogs.

CyberAgent is rolling out this smart analysis feature on the company's Ameba blog service in March 2009.

By simultaneously analyzing user content and activity among its 4.5 million users, the Ameba blog site will offer more innovative services to stimulate and accelerate participation in the blogosphere.

"Our collaboration with IBM has been mutually beneficial," said Shinsuke Usami, managing director of CyberAgent. "We combined IBM's composite data analysis technology with CyberAgent's user activity log database. We hope to continue our work with IBM to develop and deliver a new level of user experience for bloggers."

IBM's Tokyo Research Laboratory developed analytic technology that combines behavioral data, such as blog viewing patterns and posting frequency together with data, such as comments and blog post contents. Together, those two elements provide an unprecedented understanding of user interests.

Based on this technology, CyberAgent plans to implement the following new functions to its Ameba blog service:

• Blog recommendation function: This introduces highly recommended blog sites to bloggers based on personal interests. Previously, such recommendations were limited to certain blog sites written by famous persons.
  
  
• Blog supporter function: Frequent visitors to any of the some 3,500 celebrity and entertainer bloggers on Ameba will be introduced as official "supporters" of those blogs, creating an identifiable community.

CyberAgent believes the new functions will help generate new communication among blog users to further energize the Ameba blog community.

The collaboration is a part of IBM's First-of-a-Kind program, which brings together IBM researchers with other companies to create unique, advanced solutions that solve clients' business problems. IBM's Tokyo Research Lab and CyberAgent launched the project in July 2008, and in December 2008, IBM completed the design and development of the technology. CyberAgent will embed the infrastructure on its Ameba blog site by March 2009.

About CyberAgent

For more information on CyberAgent, please visit [ http://ir.cyberagent.co.jp/ir_e/ ]

About IBM

For more information on IBM, please visit [ www.ibm.com ].