There are very few companies out there that is leading the Internet towards Web 3.0.  AdaptiveBlue[1] is one of those few companies.  The plugin designed by AdaptiveBlue aims to have your computer recommend information relevant to your web surfing habits.  Recently AdaptiveBlue unleashed a new version of their plugin, BlueOrganizer Denim.

The new Firefox plugin is a bit cleaner than the last version and has a couple of extra features.  Below is a screenshot of the where the plugin is actually placed in the Firefox browser:

The new version of the plugin includes a new startup wizard that guides the user through preferred content personalization.  For example, if I want more sports content to be suggester than book content, than I would select sports during the set-up wizard.

Another new feature is the BlueMenu.  The BlueMenu pull-down is displayed on the picture on the left.  There is also a sidebar which has been condensed to a smaller size and displays thumbnails of relevant content. 

One of the features that AdaptiveBlue found users to be most excited about is SmartLinks.  The concept of SmartLinks is to take common consumption items like DVDs and then provide the ability to add it to wish lists or embed them into blogs and MySpace pages in the form of a widget.  This way a user can say, this is what I want or this is what I have.

Below is a screen shot of what happens when you click on the BlueOrganizer when you visit the Spider Man 3 DVD page on Amazon[2]:

In summary, I am impressed with the software and the semantics behind the plugin.  The only skeptics that people may have is the fact that there is a bit of tracking happening in the background while surfing the web, but it only makes your browser smarter.  Union Square Ventures invested in AdaptiveBlue in February 2007.

[1] adaptiveblue.com
[2] Amazon.com: Spider-Man 3 DVD

For people that use Yahoo! Music’s Launchcast player consistently, you will notice that the more you rate the streaming music provided, the smarter the Launchcast player becomes at choosing music that meets your liking. It is too bad that your Internet browser cannot do this for you everytime you purchase consumer goods online, right? Wrong. Alex Iskold addressed this problem at the 2006 DEMOfall conference and how his company, Adaptiveblue has developed a solution to this problem.

Adaptiveblue, LLC. has created blueorganize, a Mozilla Firefox add-on plugin that monitors your consumption habits. The more that you browse for consumer goods online, the more your blueorganize captures your book, blog, car, movie, and news interests.

Currently blueorganize supports user browsing habits on some of the top content and consumer websites such as Amazon, Google, Netflix, Yahoo!, ThinkGeek, Sears online, iTunes, and definition searches on Wikipedia and Answers. Blueorganize also monitors blog reading habits on Google Blog Search and Technorati. Blueorganize monitors bookmark lists on del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Yahoo! MyWeb, and several others.

There are two ways to get blueorganize to recognize your preferences. The first is by highlighting text of products from blogs, bookmarks, or consumer websites, right-clicking, and then selecting bluemark[item name]. The other way to have blueorganize recognize preferences is by turning on auto-detect. As it collects data, recommendations will be added to the blueorganize sidebar:

[Since I just signed up it took a few seconds to load and recommend 3-4 results]

If a user thinks that right-clicking is too much of a hassle, then another solution is to simply highlight text or visit a website, and then clicking on the icon installed next to the address bar. Here is an example of myself “bluemarking” Pulse 2.0:

The more that a user bluemarks items, the more it builds bookmarks on the sidebar under the “Collection” tab. Also, you can share your bluemarked items via RSS feeds on your website or blog by another Adaptiveblue product called bluebadges.

Browsing the web is becoming faster, more efficient, and more personalized. Adaptiveblue LLC is at the forefront of this technology advancement and I’m sure that Iskold and his team will be there to provide the best of the smart web.