LOOMIA

When Loomia first launched in June of 2005, they provided recommendations for podcasting content on their own site. A few weeks after they launched Apple added podcasting support to iTunes. This killed any hope Loomia had of becoming the leader in the "podcast finding" market. They decisively turned to "Plan B." They took the recommendation engine that they already had and turned it into a tool that can be used by ecommerce and content websites to suggest new stuff to users. While some sites... like Amazon can afford to develop their own in-house solutions, many others can't and need to outsource this. That's where Loomia steps in. They claim that using their product, media and retailer sites can have recommendations up and running in minutes. Loomia recently locked up a marquee business development deal with the Wall Street Journal. The module, which appears next to stories, suggests other Wall Street Journal content based on what the user has read previously on the site, and compared to what other users have read, too. Founded in 2004, Loomia is funded by a number of the top angels in Silicon Valley. Loomia competes directly with [Aggregate Knowledge](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/aggregateknowledge), a high flying startup that has [raised a total of $25 million](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/10/big-round-for-aggregate-knowledge/) in venture capital.More