Yahoo's Lloyd Braun on personalization

Saul Hansell at the New York Times writes about Yahoo's efforts to deliver interactive TV.

Lloyd Braun, who is leading Yahoo's Media Group, says these efforts will include personalization and recommendations:

One of Yahoo's secret weapons, Mr. Braun says, is that it can personalize information for the interests of each user, such as its My Yahoo page and the song recommendations provided to users of its music service. Mr. Braun is weaving this technology into a video player Yahoo will introduce near the end of the year.

"It will almost be like a television set," Mr. Braun said, except as people watch one program, on the center of the player, other areas will offer additional programming choices, based on their past viewing habits.

Very interesting and, like other personalization, potentially a useful way to surface things that you didn't know about and wouldn't have found on your own.

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel also has a quote in the article where he says that one of the "four pillars" of Yahoo is "personalization technology to help users sort through vast choices to find what interests them."

[via Richard MacManus]