Norway's Fast Search & Transfer said it has acquired San Francisco "personalization and recommendation" technology company AgentArts for an undisclosed amount.
Here's a brief story about the deal.
AgentArts is just one of many companies offering such technology.
"Recommendation" technologies are used by companies to offer up to their readers or users information that is relevant to them based on their previous choices. If a person tends to like the same songs as another member in the network, then a recommendation engine will continue to recommend songs to them that the other member discovers and likes.
Founded in 1999, AgentArts received financing from Innovent, a unit of Nokia Ventures, Tinshed, Amtabity, Amphion Capital and Aegis Partners (we don't know the total, but it is more than $1.25 million, which was the size of its initial round in 2000).
Other such engines include those offered by Amazon.com, Aggregate Knowledge and in music, Last.fm.
The company said its clients include Infospace Mobile and Telstra Big Pond.