Here’s another press release that we released on the SeenThis? application.

Loomia Unveils Application with WSJ.com, NBC Universal, and CNET Networks to Bring Top Social Networks to Media Sites

Loomia’s SeenThis? Technology Enables Convergence of Leading Social Networks with Media Sites Across the Internet

San Francisco - January 30, 2008—Loomia (www.loomia.com) announced today the launch of SeenThis?, the first major Internet application that allows people to bring their existing social networks with them directly onto the pages of third party content sites across the Internet. SeenThis? enables audiences to automatically discover what’s most popular with their friends and groups from leading social networking sites - while a user is visiting a content site or social network. Loomia’s initial launch partners, The Wall Street Journal Online, NBC Universal, and CNET Networks (Nasdaq: CNET), are leading the trend toward convergence of social networks with the rest of the Internet.

With the debut of SeenThis?, a new patent-pending component of Loomia’s personalization platform, website publishers can bridge their sites with users’ social network relationships. Today, visitors of WSJ.com can opt-in to instantly see a selection of links to WSJ.com articles and blog posts that have been recently viewed or shared by their friends, groups and networks. Users will see, for example, that the content is popular with “8 friends”, “Harvard Business School”, or “Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs”, based on their particular social network affiliations. Users will also visit the application on their profile page within social networking sites to get an up-to-the-minute window of most-popular content within their networks from sites across the web.

Starting today, CNET Networks is deploying the application across three of its properties, BNET, ZDNet, and TechRepublic.

“Loomia’s SeenThis? instantly harnesses the power of our readers’ existing social network relationships,” said Stephen Howard-Sarin, Vice President of Products for CNET Networks’ business brands. “It will enable our visitors to discover the leading articles, blogs and whitepapers that are grabbing the attention of their trusted friends and groups, and are therefore socially-relevant. By super-charging word-of-mouth distribution of our content, our sites become even more ‘must-read’ destinations for business and technology professionals.”

NBC Universal is joining the SeenThis? launch by including popular NBC.com shows and videos in the SeenThis? application on a leading social network. Users will see links to videos that are hottest among their friends, such as clips from “The Office” and “Saturday Night Live”.

“Loomia’s SeenThis? opens up new ways for people to virally discover and engage with NBC.com shows and video,” said Stephen Andrade, Senior Vice President of Digital Development and General Manager at NBC.com. “People love to watch content based on word-of-mouth from friends, family and co-workers. Social communities are no longer silos. With this application, we connect the lines between our content, our audience and their social networks.”

SeenThis? is the newest offering from Loomia’s personalization platform, launched in 2006 to enable websites to enhance user engagement. SeenThis? adds the social component to complement Loomia’s other onsite personal recommendations, such as its “People Who Like This, Also Like” content and product suggestions, which are based on user activity and contextual information.

“We are excited to launch with three of the largest media companies in business, technology and entertainment,” said David Marks, Loomia CTO & Co-Founder. “Users will have a unique personal and social lens for discovering the most compelling content on sites across the web. Partners can easily leverage existing social relationships to drive new traffic from social networks and to deepen the onsite experience.”

Loomia’s SeenThis? is an opt-in-only application. Users have complete control of how much information they share, if any, and they can easily opt out at any time. User data is anonymized and aggregated as a whole; names and individual actions are not shared with anyone unless a user explicitly chooses to share media with his or her network. For a detailed description of Loomia’s privacy policy, please visit seenthis.loomia.com/privacy.

SeenThis? is available now for users at a leading social network and content partners. Users can sign up for the SeenThis? application at seenthis.loomia.com or at partner sites. Content providers interested in learning more about adding SeenThis? to their site can contact Loomia at seenthis.loomia.com/contact. To see a press release from the Wall Street Journal about SeenThis?, please see seenthis.loomia.com/inthenews.

About Loomia

Loomia’s patent-pending technologies fuel discovery and deliver a highly personalized user experience on websites, based on three dimensions of relevance—contextual, personal and social. Built on Loomia’s personalization platform, the SeenThis? application bridges established social networking sites with media sites. Loomia’s personalization platform offers a suite of web-services that power over 40 media publishers and retail websites, including The Wall Street Journal, NBC Universal, CNET Networks, and Audible. Founded in 2004, Loomia is a privately held company based in San Francisco, CA. For more information, visit seenthis.loomia.com.
About The Wall Street Journal Online

The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com, published by Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com), is the largest paid subscription news site on the Web with one million subscribers worldwide. Launched in 1996, WSJ.com attracts a rapidly growing audience of industry leaders and influentials. The award-winning site provides in-depth business news and financial information 24 hours a day, including breaking business and technology news and analysis from around the world. It draws on the Dow Jones network of nearly 1,900 business and financial news staff - the largest network of business and financial journalists in the world.
About CNET Networks

CNET Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:CNET) is an interactive media company that builds brands for people and the things they are passionate about, such as gaming, music, entertainment, technology, business, food, and parenting. The Company’s leading brands include BNET, CHOW, CNET, GameSpot, and TV.com. Founded in 1992, CNET Networks has a strong presence in the US, Asia, and Europe.
About NBC Universal

NBC Universal is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 80% owned by General Electric and 20% owned by Vivendi.
Media Contacts:

FOR LOOMIA, INC.
Ilene Adler, 415-984-1970 x102
PR@vantage for Loomia
iadler@pr-vantage.com

Monica Lee, 415-738-8096 x508
press@loomia.com

FOR DOW JONES & COMPANY
Ashley Huston, 212-416-2025
ashley.huston@dowjones.com

For NBC UNIVERSAL
Joe Libonati, 818-840-3050
joe.libonati@nbcuni.com

For CNET NETWORKS
Sarah Cain, 415-344-2218
Sarah.cain@cnet.com

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WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE LAUNCHES APPLICATION BRINGING USERS’ SOCIAL NETWORKS TO WSJ.COM

Loomia’s new SeenThis? social convergence application tells users which content is popular with their friends and groups from largest social networks

NEW YORK (Jan. 30, 2008)—The Wall Street Journal Online announced today the launch of SeenThis?, a social convergence application that brings users’ social networks onto the pages of WSJ.com. WSJ.com users can now see what WSJ.com articles are most popular with their friends and groups from leading social networking sites, without having to leave the site.

Through an agreement with Loomia (www.loomia.com), a leader in website personalization, WSJ.com is the first company to fully deploy SeenThis? The application allows users to choose to see a list of WSJ.com articles and blog posts recently viewed or shared by their friends–both directly on WSJ.com and on social networking sites. For example, users will see article links that are “popular with 5 friends,” “popular with San Francisco,” or “popular at NYU,” depending on their social network affiliations. Users will be able to view these WSJ.com articles for free, and they also have full control over how they share content.

“SeenThis? provides an exciting new way for WSJ.com users to interact with their trusted social network and engage with our content,” said Daniel Bernard, General Manager of WSJ.com. “Recommendations from friends are an effective way to fuel discovery and sharing of content that matters most to people. This application not only extends our brand and content to new audiences in large social networking sites, but also deepens on-site engagement by bringing those communities directly to WSJ.com.”

In July 2007, WSJ.com first rolled out Loomia’s recommendations platform to deliver articles of interest to users based on what they were viewing on the site. SeenThis? now offers users the added benefit of seeing at-a-glance what is most popular and interesting among their social networking circles. WSJ.com users can view this feature on the right side of each WSJ.com article page, as well as on profile pages of select social networking platforms. SeenThis? is an opt-in only application.

“We are proud to be introducing this highly useful application that was built on extensive focus group and user input,” said David Marks, Loomia CTO & Co-Founder. “SeenThis? sets social networks free and extends the networks’ reach across a user’s favorite SeenThis?-enabled websites. It expands the power of word of mouth by allowing people to stay connected with their friends about the latest news and trends - staying in the know, wherever they go, on sites across the web.”

SeenThis? is a social convergence application built on Loomia’s personalization platform which enables content and retail website publishers to personalize their Web users’ experience with recommendations generated by three dimensions of relevance - contextual, personal and social. Users can sign up for SeenThis? at www.wsj.com.

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About Loomia Inc.
Loomia’s patent-pending technologies fuel discovery and deliver a highly personalized user experience on websites, based on three dimensions of relevance - contextual, personal and social. Its social convergence platform features the SeenThis? application, which bridges established social networking sites with media sites. The platform is based upon Loomia’s personal recommendations suite, a hosted web-service that powers more than 50 media publishers and retail websites, including The Wall Street Journal, NBC Universal, CNET Networks, and Audible. Founded in 2004, Loomia is a privately held company based in San Francisco, CA. For more information, visit http://seenthis.loomia.com

About The Wall Street Journal Online
The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com, published by Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com), is the largest paid subscription news site on the Web with one million subscribers worldwide. Launched in 1996, WSJ.com attracts a rapidly growing audience of industry leaders and influentials. The award-winning site provides in-depth business news and financial information 24 hours a day, including breaking business and technology news and analysis from around the world. It draws on the Dow Jones network of nearly 1,900 business and financial news staff - the largest network of business and financial journalists in the world.

We proudly announce the launch of SeenThis?, a new social discovery tool for Facebook. SeenThis? lets you use your network of friends to discover the latest news articles, blog posts, videos and more. Find out what your social circles are buzzing about, in Facebook or by taking them with you to your favorite websites.

SeenThis? lets you

• Be in the know. Stay visibly connected to the media that your circles are enjoying and sharing from our partner sites.
• Make it personal. Discover new content from the people you know and whose opinions matter to you.
• Spread it fast. Instantly broadcast your favorites to friends and groups anonymously or personally.
• Discover Content on our Partner Sites. SeenThis? is a FaceBook application but you’ll also see it on pages of your favorite content sites, including The Wall Street Journal Online, NBC.com, and CNET Networks. And we’re adding more everyday.

The Problem
The ease with which cut-n-paste third party JavaScript widgets can be integrated into any website has led to an explosion in their popularity around the web, but they are not without their pitfalls, the greatest of which is slow page load times due to performance or network issues with the widget provider’s service. When you consider that many sites use several widgets from different providers on the same page (ads, analytics, and more) the cumulative effect can be painful.

Our Solution
To mitigate this issue, Loomia employs a method that does not hold up page loading while the Loomia servers are accessed, and fails gracefully in the extremely unlikely event that Loomia’s service is unreachable.

1. The customer adds two empty placeholder divs to their page and some JavaScript “bootstrapping” code. The first will be used to attach a <script> tag, and the second will be where the widget will be displayed:

<div id="_loomia_script_anchor"></div>  <!-- Loomia scripts will attach here -->
<div id="_loomia_pr_anchor"></div> <!-- Loomia Personal Recommendations will be displayed here -->

<!-- Loomia boostrapping code -->
<script type="text/JavaScript">
function _loomia_addScript(url,script_anchor) {
.
.
.
}
function loomia_addCS() {
    _loomia_addScript("http://assets.loomia.com/js/personalrecs.js", "_loomia_script_anchor");
}
if (window.addEventListener) {
	window.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", _loomia_addCS, false);
.
.
.
}
</script>

(Due to an unfortunate bug in Internet Explorer, these can’t be combined into a single div.)

2. In order to prevent interferening with the loading of the customer’s page we wait until the page has loaded before running the boostrapping code. On Firefox and other browsers which support DOMContentLoaded, the boostrapping code attaches an event listener to the DOMContentLoaded event. This allows us to execute our code once the complete DOM has been loaded but before any images are loaded giving us a bit of a head start. On other browsers we attach the event listener to the onLoad event.

3. When the DOMContentLoaded or onLoad event fires, we attach a <script> tag to the _loomia_script_anchor div and set the src attribute of the script tag to load the additional Loomia script that actually displays the recommendations widget :

_loomia_addScript("http://assets.loomia.com/js/personalrecs.js", "_loomia_script_anchor");

4. We pass the id of the div where the widget will be displayed (_loomia_pr_anchor) to the widget script which calls the Loomia service to retrieve the list of recommendations. The call returns output as HTML which is attached to the widget display div and voilà! — recommendations have been added to the page, without any disruption to normal page loading.

David Marks will be on a panel at Searchnomics 2007 hosted by the Web Guild. This one-day event looks to be a fantastic event on all things search.

Increased Revenue Through People-Powered Site Search and Recommendations

Moderator: Susan Bratton, CEO, Personal Life Media, Inc.

David Marks, Co-Founder/CEO/President, Loomia
Levy Cohen, CEO/Founder, Collarity
Jack Jia, CEO, Baynote

A publisher’s main concern is connecting their audience to the content they need. The publisher’s best resource for accomplishing that goal is the audience themselves. But what is the best way to tap into the wisdom of that crowd? There is an emerging set of companies now focused at helping websites and Web publishers harness the collective intelligence of their website audience to generate better site search, helpful content recommendations, and important business intelligence about their most important customer segments. When Web visitors can find what they need more often, almost all website success metrics improve. Harnessing community behavior also allows publishers to match more relevant advertisements to users. Search marketing is then optimized as a major revenue driver using the knowledge of any site’s communities. Come hear how these companies are moving search and content discovery relevance beyond semantics and links, toward a new world of anonymous user-actions and behavior.

David Marks writes in Found|Read, which is a GigaOm production, about Loomia’s shift in strategy in early 2006.

Key quote- “When you realize your model needs a shift, be prepared to make it, decisively.”

Good Migration
How Loomia successfully adjusted from Plan A to Plan B
By David Marks

Loomia today is a fast growing company with real revenues and customers. But Loomia is a different company than when it first started – like many start ups, we had to change our business plan early on just to survive. The story of how Loomia became the company we know today offers lessons that I hope will help other founders deal with this all too common startup challenge.

When Loomia first launched in June of 2005, we provided recommendations for podcasting content on our own web site. While this idea was novel and popular with users, by January 2006 we had completely shifted our business to provide recommendations on other web sites using our technology platform. This is the story of that transformation from the inside.

The Writing On The Wall
Just weeks after Loomia launched to the public, the first sign of trouble dropped into our otherwise nascent market: Apple added podcasting support to iTunes. Because iTunes was already installed on millions of desktops, this was trouble. We estimated the market share of various competitors, and it was immediately clear that Apple had grabbed more than 50% of the “podcast finding” business overnight. Ouch.

At this point, just a few months after launch, business became an uphill battle for market share. We had growth, but hardly the kind of growth needed to transition into a robust business. Even worse, our best-funded and capable competitor, Odeo, was also struggling to get real traction despite heaps of positive publicity.

It was apparent that nobody, other than Apple, was going to win the millions of users necessary to be truly successful. We knew there were ways to improve Loomia 1.0’s product incrementally, but seeing others spend ten times as much as we did and still not succeed was disconcerting.

Podcasting hype only made things worse. Literally dozens of “podcast finding” sites popped up over the next few months. Worthwhile ideas bring competition, but thirty or forty competitors is not a good thing. Not everyone was doing the same thing as Loomia 1.0, but it didn’t matter enough to the end users. We were all just fighting over a small slice of the pie.

The Moment of Truth
Just a few months into the business, I asked myself the question “If I was going to start this business today with all the assets and skills Loomia has, would I do it?” I was not sure. Things weren’t going as planned, so I reached out to others to get a reality check. My and my co-founders were very passionate about helping our customers find great podcast content, but it wasn’t clear we’d be able to do it and succeed as a business. One of our advisors told me on the phone “You should do something to let other sites use the recommendations system – I’d use that kind of thing on my site.” I had actually received earlier requests for exactly this idea from other web sites, but I’d brushed them off as a distraction. Now, given the landscape of Loomia’s original market, it was time to consider a “Plan B.”

After doing some analysis of the new market and collecting more information from possible customers, I called a meeting between my co-founders. I presented my analysis of the situation and a proposal for a new Loomia – Loomia 2.0 – focused on a recommendations service that can be added to any web site in just a few minutes. In January 2006, Loomia launched its new recommendations service for media and retail web sites. Over a year later revenues are growing, customers are lining up, and millions of users interact with our service every month on a network of customer sites. Loomia is a real, thriving business and we’re achieving our goal of helping people find the stuff they like online in a big way. We learned three key lessons about changing the direction of a startup:

1) Hope is not a strategy
It’s critical that you evaluate your market and your own growth continually. Is the market growing quickly? Is it big enough to support you and the other companies in the space? Are your competitors thriving, or struggling? Is there a dominant player with a huge amount of market share, and more important do you have a solid plan to beat them? Our situation was a small market with one large competitor and dozens of little ones… not fertile ground for a successful startup.

2) Listen to the market
One of the things that helped Loomia was listening to users, advisors, potential customers, and friends. When we calculated that Apple had the majority of our market, and estimate our market size as limited, we had the data we needed to make a good objective decision to switch. Hearing from potential customers was instrumental in showing us where our real value existed.

3) Be decisive
Once you decide you need to change direction, communicate clearly the new vision to your stakeholders: users, investors, advisors, employees…everyone who might care. There is a temptation to trickle resources into your old business in the hope that one or two new features will make the original idea succeed. Resist this distraction by explaining the opportunity ahead, and that the data supporting the change of business direction. It’s hard to say no, but you must be focused on the new business because your will need all of your available resources to make the new plan succeed.

Changing your business model is hard to do. Yet a surprising number of start-ups have changed direction radically, and become hugely successful. Paypal’s original business plan was for transferring money exclusively between PDAs. The Flickr team started out making online games before launching the popular photo sharing site. When you realize your model needs a shift, be prepared to make it, decisively.

We’re pleased to announce the hiring of Dave McMurtry as Executive Vice President of Business Development.

PRESS RELEASE

Loomia Hires Senior Executive from Intuit

San Francisco – February 12, 2007 – Loomia, an emerging leader in the recommendations and personalization space, has hired Dave McMurtry as Executive Vice President of Business Development. Mr. McMurtry joins Loomia after a 14-year career at Intuit, the largest and most successful desktop and Internet software company in personal finance, small business management, and personal and professional tax in the U.S.

During his long career at Intuit, Mr. McMurtry held a number of key roles, including managing outsourced technical support, product development, international operations and most recently corporate development – strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and business development. During his 6-year period in this role, Mr. McMurtry’s team led transactions worth more than $1.5 billion in acquisitions to Intuit’s software and technology portfolio and executed over 25 partnership deals with more than 15 companies for delivery of technology, content, and services including partnerships with companies such as Yahoo, Google, AOL, D&B, Paypal, GovWorks, Visa, Morningstar, Nolo, FedEx/Kinko’s, DowJones, VeriSign and eBay. Intuit was a one-product pre-IPO startup when he was asked by the founder to join in 1992.

“We are extremely pleased to have Dave join Loomia at this stage of our company,” says David Marks, Founder and CEO. “His knowledge, background, and values make him a key addition to our management team. Plus, his experience in helping to grow one of the most respected software companies in the world will be invaluable to us in our pursuit to become one of the leading companies in this next phase of Internet search.”

Loomia provides media and retail sites with easy-to-use recommendation and personalization services to help visitors find things they like, increase site activity and improve merchandising. The Loomia Recommendations service is a hosted service that can be used for all retail goods including shoes, wine, fashion, and electronics and all types of media items including audio, video, books, music and ringtones. It works transparently within the pages of a site, taking user input in the form of site activity, purchases and ratings, and then producing lists of relevant items for display throughout the site. In his position at Loomia, Mr. McMurtry will oversee sales and pricing strategy and manage business development and channel partnerships.

Mr. McMurtry is a Sloan Fellow and has a Masters of Management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and a BS in Business Administration from California Polytechnic University. He is also President of HelpDaveChangeLives.org, a foundation to change lives around the world, as exhibited in the most recent project which raised $175,000 to build 35 houses for more than 200 victims of violence in a war-torn jungle village in northwest Colombia.

About Loomia Inc.:
Loomia (www.loomia.com) is an emerging leader in the recommendations and personalization space, a rapidly growing area within Internet search. Loomia’s service can be used for all retail goods including shoes, wine, fashion, and electronics and all types of media items including audio, video, books, music and ringtones. Founded in 2004, Loomia is a privately held company based in San Francisco, CA.

Loomia and Loomia Recommendations are trademarks of Loomia Inc.

# # #

Loomia Contact

Ben Stricker
Ben Stricker Public Relations
ben.stricker@gmail.com
+1 510.435.6259

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We’ve recently completed a redesign of our site to better explain what we do. Here are just a few of the highlights of the new site:

• More graphics to show how online retailers and media publishers can benefit from Loomia Recommendations.
• Expanded descriptions of the different Recommendation solutions — Loomia Media, Loomia Retail, and Loomia Free.
• Clearer description of the risk-free pricing models — including the free development period, free ad-supported option, and free 30-day trial period for paid plans.

Mashery came out of stealth mode the other day with Loomia as one of the first companies listing its APIs there. We found it very easy to set up a developer portal there. Love the concept, love the team (Oren Michels, Eleanor Kruszewski, among others). Really happy to be working with them.

Lots of in-depth reviews of Mashery. A few of them are here:

TechCrunch
Ajax Blog

Loomia is a sponsor of the Web2point2 conference on November 8th and 9th in San Francisco. It’ s a great unconference with a free-flowing set of session topics. Great idea, good list of sponsors and attendees. Check it out here.