For the latest extensions to its ColdFusion development environment, Java tool shop Allaire Corp has teamed up with Net Perceptions, builder of the GroupLens Recommendation Engine. GroupLens is a collaborative filtering system, rather like Firefly’s intelligent agent technology. It tries to figure out what consumer goods its E-commerce customers will like, based on their existing tastes (CI No 3,452). This announcement means that all developers have to do to use GroupLens in their web applications is drop the ColdFusion Extension (CFX) onto their page. The extension passes the relevant information to the Recommendation Engine, which compares the users’ preferences with those of similar users and passes back a suggestion for a purchase. The CFX is free for download by all developers who also use GroupLens.
