“Things Like The Things You Like”

Today we are excited to announce our latest project: sugJester.  sugJester is a tool to help people find great new things.  We’ve been working hard putting the finishing touches on the sugJester recommendation engine and are planning on releasing the beta within the next few weeks.

The main idea behind sugJester is to recommend things that are similar to things you already like.  We’re starting with books but planning on expanding to many things like podcasts, movies and media of all kinds – for now.

There are all kinds of recommendation engines out there, so why use sugJester?  We love Amazon, and their suggestions are good but there’s a problem.  On Amazon, suggestions are based on what you’ve purchased or viewed compared with what other people purchase or view.  What if I purchase or look at a bunch of stuff I end up not liking?  With Amazon’s recommendations I’d have to go in and remove items from the list of things I’ve viewed or purchased.

Amazon's Recommendations

At sugJester we know that just because you look at something doesn’t implicitly mean that you like it, so we focus our recommendations entirely based on the things that you’ve told us you like. We think this will be a more accurate basis on which to make sugJestions relevant to what you’re looking for right now.  Say you’re tired of reading business books for a while and are more in the mood for some books about travel.  Just enter your favorite travel books from sugJester’s database of more than 8 million items and  sugJester will find the books that are most like the ones you entered so you’re much more likely to enjoy them.

We’ll keep you posted when sugJester beta goes live.  We hope you check it out and provide feedback on the results or the site itself. Until then, sign up for email updates or follow @sugJester on Twitter.