Most of the time, if an open source tool needs something the community will build it, but eZ Systems, makers of eZ Publish, went out and bought YOOCHOOSE, a recommendation engine, giving eZ a quick entree into the burgeoning area of customer experience management.

As we wrote last week, Forrester Research recently released a report indicating that a key differentiator for web content management vendors in the future will involve customer experience management--the ability to customize the experience for each visitor--and that's exactly what YOOCHOOSE provides for eZ.

Gabriele Viebach, CEO of eZ Systems AS said in a statement that's precisely why eZ went after YOOCHOOSE. "Our customers are required to address the end visitor with a more sophisticated experience and the addition of YOOCHOOSE and the recommendation technology is an important enhancement for the eZ Systems platform to optimize on future market trends and fulfill these foreseen requirements," Viebach said.

The new tool, which will be known hence forth as the eZ Recommender Engine, will enable website owners to collect data on users for the purpose of customizing the visitor experience based on the visitor path through the website. I'm guessing this works in a similar fashion to the Amazon recommendation engine: You bought X, so you might like this too.

This is a big deal for an open source player like eZ because it gives eZ users the ability to understand their customers better and deliver more targeted content that could keep them on the site longer and keep them coming back.

For more information:
- see the eZ Publish press release

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