Last.fm founders launch web recommendation tool Lumi

Martin Stiksel and Felix Miller swore they wouldn't do another startup – until they created a service based on browsing history.
The co-founders of music recommendation site Last.fm are launch a new discovery service today, using 10 years of experience around recommendation tools to develop Lumi.do.
Initially a browser plugin for Chrome and Firefox, Lumi uses the browsing history to suggest related content including news, arts, sport and entertainment.
Consumers have come to negatively associate cookies - small files that cumulatively create a browsing history – with having their activity tracked, but cookies also allow services to be targeted, relevant and useful, says Stiksel.
"I've been browsing the web for 15 years and I've got nothing to show for it," he said. "It's that same Last.fm principle of using data that people have lying around, in this case to help them discover new things. They understand that their data is valuable and normally it is used in a commercial environment being used by advertisers, but they don't know what else can be done with it."
Lumi doesn't collect user data but presents different suggestions based on their local browsing history, so results improve and update as the user keeps browsing. A side menu offers more tailored options for certain subjects.
It's four years since the pair last worked at Last.fm following the acquisition. "There are different challenges working in a corporate environment to a startup, yes," said Miller. But they reject that in their absensce, Last.fm is flagging and has been usurped by Spotify. "All the music was always available anyway, and Last.fm links well into Spotify – a playlist jumping off point. But Last.fm made Spotify realise they needed to do something in recommendation."

Source: https://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jul/11/last-fm-lumi-stiksel-miller-web-recommendation