Hunch launches Partner Platform for personalization; 7 inaugural partners represent 250 million+ monthly unique visitors
We’re very pleased to announce the launch of Hunch’s new Partner Platform. Seven premier companies in a broad range of market segments will kick off the program: Interactive Corp’s Gifts.com, Bluefly, Buzzfeed, Heyzap, ShopStyle, Milo and FanBridge.
Hunch’s Partner Platform allows companies to tap into Hunch’s growing Taste Graph to personalize user experiences around products, services or content based on a user’s tastes, interests and preferences. Partners are utilizing the Hunch Partner Platform to build personalized recommendations, personal search and to allow users to create unique taste profiles to connect with people of similar interests.
The Partner Platform uses Hunch’s open API and allows partners to develop unique applications that match their brand identity, audience profile, and business goals. Partners can integrate the Hunch API into any 3rd party site or build unique and creative Hunch applications directly on Hunch.com.
Hunch’s initial seven partners represent a combined direct reach of more than 30 million monthly unique visitors. Including their syndication networks, Hunch’s initial partners reach more than 250 million monthly unique visitors worldwide. These partnerships will be revenue-generating by increasing conversion and relevance and will complement Hunch’s existing revenue model of merchant links on Hunch.com.
As the most obvious example of an existing site that uses Hunch’s Partner Platform, Hunch.com itself was recently re-engineered to run as a stand-alone application on the platform and was entirely built on the Hunch API.
Hunch’s inaugural Partner Platform participants include the following companies:
Gifts.com, an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), will use Hunch’s Partner Platform to create an application to help users find gift recommendations for their Facebook friends. The application will reside on both Hunch.com and within Gifts.com. “We’re excited to work with Hunch to build this application, which will combine Gifts.com’s hand-selected and tagged gift ideas with Hunch’s personalized recommendation technology to provide our users with highly relevant gift recommendations this holiday season,” said Graham Stanton, President of Gifts.com.
Bluefly is a leading online retailer of designer fashion and accessories. “We are excited to be the initial fashion retailer to partner with Hunch to provide our customers with customized recommendations that enhance their shopping experience,” says Bradford Matson, Chief Marketing Officer at Bluefly. “We see customization as the next phase of online shopping.”
Buzzfeed is a technology and media company that identifies and accelerates the distribution of the most LOL, OMG, and WTF content on the viral web. “We are very excited about the data threesome we are doing with Hunch and Facebook. Combining BuzzFeed’s viral content detection, Hunch’s recommendation engine, and Facebook’s sharing will power one-click social recommendations for BuzzFeed.com’s 7 million monthly readers.” says Jonah Peretti, CEO.
Heyzap will be using Hunch’s Partner Platform to recommend games to users on their platform. The Heyzap Games App on Hunch.com will learn to recommend the right game for each user. “We’ve got a hunch that this is going to be a big deal,” says Jude Gomila, Co-founder.
ShopStyle is a search engine devoted to fashion, allowing users to cross-shop apparel, home decorating and kids products. Hunch will be building a personalized shopping experience for ShopStyle that will reside on Hunch.com and link out to ShopStyle’s various merchants.
Milo is a local shopping engine that allows users to search over 3 million products and find which nearby retailers currently have them in-stock. The Hunch/Milo Application, which will give users the ability to receive targeted, personalized product recommendations, will be accessible on Hunch.com and through Hunch’s Local products.
FanBridge powers valuable fan relationships by enabling easy and effective management of email lists, mobile lists, and social networks. “Keeping our audience of over 75 million fans engaged with their artists is all about relevance,” says Spencer Richardson, CEO. “Hunch will help us personalize content and products to provide our fans with an even more tailored and rewarding experience.”
We’re excited to kick off our Partner Platform with the diverse and high quality companies listed above, and we’ll be announcing more partnerships in the near future.
For more information about using Hunch’s Partner Platform to personalize recommendations on other sites, contact Shaival Shah, VP of Business Development, at bd@hunch.com.