If You Like Taylor Swift's Music, You Might Enjoy These Books

Personalization algorithms are often helpful, but not without fail — buy a gift for a friend on Amazon and suddenly you feel like a stranger in your own account.

Qloo is an iOS app launched in November that believes better recommendations come from being more holistic. You add favorites across eight categories (movies, books, travel destinations, restaurants, etc.), each with subcategories, and the app makes cross-category recommendations. You can't have more than five favorites per subcategory — an attempt to keep the app's data high-quality. Your taste in music will influence your recommendations for brunch, and so on, creating a sort of Frankenstein monster of Foursquare, Netflix, Amazon and more. Read more...