jen consalvo, making it personal: designing 'my' web

Making It Personaldesigning my web

Jen ConsalvoAOL, Personalization

(C) 2007 AOL LLC. All Rights Reserved. AOL, the AOL Triangle Logo, and myAOL are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of AOL LLC. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

What does it mean to deliver a personalized experience?

• From simple customizations…• Local/zip code• Rearrange a page• Choose from a few views or customize a couple elements• Tell us what they like or don’t like

• Evolving to a more efficient & useful online world for individuals…• Everything is about ME the user (and my network)• Personalization = Relevance• Bring me what I want, how, where and when I want it

Personalization is a philosophy for how we will deliver the most relevant possible experiences to our customers, driving satisfaction and loyalty.


CustomizationPersonalized experiences based on explicit, user-provided preferences, inputs and actions.

Collaborative Filtering:Identifies relationships between different items, and then uses these relationships to compute recommendations for users (people who like this, also liked this).

Behavior-based:Monitors user behavior (tracks clickstream) and infers interests to make content recommendations suited to individual interests and needs.

Social NetworkLeveraging trusted social network for recommendations.

Interesting things are happening in this space

My Yahoo!®

Google™ IGNetvibes™

iTunes®

Amazon®

TiVo®

StumbleUpon™

Netflix®

iTunes® StoreMyStrands®

Findory™

Yahoo!®RecommendsGoogle™Recommends

LinkedIn® contact recommendations


Amazon®

• Personalized Recommendations• Wishlists• Ratings• Privacy Controls


iTunes®

• My playlists• Personal ratings• Customized view

• Recommended Songs (store)


Facebook®

• Widgets, Feeds• Privacy & Controls• Personal Network Feeds/Updates


iGoogle™

• Widgets, Feeds• Simple design customization• Create your own widget to share


LinkedIn®

• Contact Recommendations• Job Opportunities


The New York Times® - My Times™

• Customization• Some 3rd party widgets• Add content from other sites!


Why is Personalization Important?

It’s about engagement.

Content Personalization & Customization, Jupiter, Aug 2006


And that’s the Goal!

• Users who customize leverage more applications and services, visit sites more frequently, are more engaged in marketing, and influence their peers, versus users who do not customize.

• My Yahoo!® - 25 percent of its users• Frequency is high (almost nine days per month)• Only sections such as e-mail and the home page produce relatively more frequency

•Young users were notably more likely to say they increased use frequency (38 percent).

• Far more of these users (61 percent) said they customized a site, compared with users in the age group (i.e., ages 35 to 44) with the next-highest customization experience (48 percent)—customization directly correlates with age, dramatically dropping off as an audience ages.

Content Personalization & Customization, Jupiter, Aug 2006


Getting Personal at AOL…

• User Feedback• comments gathered from the beta area, customer service, the product blog

• Competitive Analysis• product and design team, usability

• Focus Groups• live, online focus group

AOL® IQ Session, C&R Research, 11/06

• Interest in customized pages is strong • 96% of participants likely• 81% like or love the option to customize

• High desire to make personal choices about content, features, look & feel of a frequently used page.

• Customizing “saves time” by allowing them to:

• have everything they need in one place• find what they’re looking for quickly


Problem Solving

• Problem: so many websites, so many things for me to check/do; time is a scarcity.

• Solution: • Build the best possible “personal dashboard” – your jumping off

point for the web.• Make it comfortable, familiar, yet full of options so it can change and

grow with me.• Innovate around automation – find me things I like or want without

me having to do the work


Introducing the myAOL™ Product Suite

The new myAOL™ is a convergence of more mainstream (yet fun and useful) personalization features, savvy feed reading tools and an innovative content discovery service – all layered on a portable, personalization platform that will be ultimately coupled with social networking components (to come!).

• myAOL™– Fast, customizable, inward-facing (private) product that will provide users with a single

interface for quick access to their favorite web services, preferred content and buddy network.

• Mgnet– Content discovery and recommendation service with multiple inputs (passive and active) and

a differentiated design focused around innovative “image cloud” of topics.

• Favorites– A feed reader that promotes reading, sharing and managing a user’s personal, portable, list

of feeds and bookmarks.


myAOL

• Customize with content and functionality modules like AOL® Video, Engadget™, TechCrunch™, Netflix®, Picture Gallery, Horoscopes, eBay® -as well as your own feed

– Thousands of content feeds available to users – from AOL and across the Web

• Check multiple email accounts right on your myAOL homepage, including AOL® Mail, Gmail™ and others

• Drag and drop modules to rearrange your page, change it’s color and personalize the tab names

• Add additional tabs so your sports headlines don't have to compete with your tech industry news or gardening tips


Mgnet

• Mgnet (pronounced Magnet) is something totally new, fun - and somewhat addictive. The more you use it, the better it gets.

• It's a content discovery service, like a personal assistant that scouts the Web for new sites and content you'd enjoy

• Click on images and stories you like, rate what you see, and Mgnet delivers personalized recommendations to help you discover new sites that you might not have found on your own

• Use Mgnet search for specific topics• Browse your personalized recommendations• Check out "What's Hot" to see what others are looking at right now.• Click “What else ya got” to get a new set of recommendations at any time


Favorites

• Favorites is our updated feed reader that brings together your feeds and bookmarks in one place.

– View and quickly access your favorite news and content from the web whether it's from ESPN.com® or USAToday.com.

– Add as many news and blog feeds as you want.

• Easily organize your items and even import your local bookmarks as well as your feeds from other readers via our OPML import/export option.

• Favorites are for sharing! Favorites lets you mix and share your favorite feeds and bookmarks.

– Easily email and IM your favorite feed items or bookmarks to friends– Create your own feed or bookmark “mashups” (via simple folders) and share

them with individual friends or your entire Buddy List® feature using AIMShare™.

• And it’s FAST!


Check out the myAOL™ Sneak Peek at http://myaolblog.aol.com

Questions?

Contact me at [email protected]

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jen consalvo, making it personal: designing 'my' web

Technology

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network personalization

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