http://www.scarabresearch.com Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:01:58 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.scarabresearch.com/2011/11/03/scarab-research-triumphs-at-major-news-portal-competition/ http://www.scarabresearch.com/2011/11/03/scarab-research-triumphs-at-major-news-portal-competition/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:05:27 +0000 maroy http://www.scarabresearch.com/?p=181 [origo], a major Hungarian news portal. ]]>
To our delight, Scarab’s recommendation system provided the largest improvement for all key metrics.

The relative improvement compared to Origo’s baseline is plotted below:



During the two week show-down period Scarab’s recommender improved click-through ratio by 42.08% compared to the baseline of Origo’s existing content recommendations, with the second best solution reaching a 41.23% improvement. Scarab’s content recommender increased the number of page views by 4.5%, leading contenders by a thick margin with the second-best solution improving only 1.5% on this metric. Taking the combined results of these two key metrics, only Scarab’s content recommendation algorithm showed a significant improvement – competing systems could only improve one of these metrics to any significant degree on, but not both.

Why are these metrics important?

Click-through ratio

The click-through ratio metric shows the amount of people clicking on a particular link on a web page – for example a link leading to another news article on a news site. Improving on this metric shows the immediate effectiveness of a recommendation system.

Page views per session

The page views per session metrics shows how many pages or articles each visitor is reading on a news portal, when visiting the portal. This metric is vital in showing readers’ engagement and interest in a particular news portal. Improving on the page views per session metric is a strategic goal for all online news portals.

About Scarab Research

Scarab Research helps online merchants and media companies grow their business by applying intelligent behavior-based recommendations. Our technology is proving itself every day at some of the largest online retailers (eg. FreshDirect.com, New York). Our Scarab Cloud service brings recommendations to small/medium sized businesses in a cost effective way.]]> http://www.scarabresearch.com/2011/11/03/scarab-research-triumphs-at-major-news-portal-competition/feed/ 0 http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/12/01/freshdirects-secret-sauce/ http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/12/01/freshdirects-secret-sauce/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:49:44 +0000 Viktor http://www.scarabresearch.com/?p=157
New York’s largest online grocer FreshDirect operates a fully customized version of the Scarab Enterprise recommender product to ensure their competitive lead with a cutting edge personalized recommender system.

Watch the full interview on CNNMoney.
]]> http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/12/01/freshdirects-secret-sauce/feed/ 0 http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/11/22/top-hungarian-online-retailers-use-scarab-technology/ http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/11/22/top-hungarian-online-retailers-use-scarab-technology/#comments Mon, 22 Nov 2010 16:22:55 +0000 Viktor http://www.scarabresearch.com/?p=149 Hungarian Online Retailer of the Year Prize, where all three top prizes went to customers of our Scarab Enterprise and Scarab Cloud products.]]> Bookline.hu is the largest online retailer on the market based on the number of orders placed. The online bookstore was our first user, rolling out a fully customized version of our Enterprise product in 2009. Bookline.hu has snatched the top award at the competition for the past two years.

The second and third prizes were awarded to Extreme Digital (a retailer in electronics) and Jateknet.hu (a seller of toys and games) who are both users of our Scarab Cloud product, launched only 4 months ago.

The extremely rapid market penetration we’re seeing with Scarab Cloud is a clear sign that the cloud’s advantages – radically quick implementation and zero investment – are meeting the real world needs of online retailers. It is also an indication of the viability of our subscription model.

We want to congratulate the winners, and wish much success to the other competitors as well.]]> http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/11/22/top-hungarian-online-retailers-use-scarab-technology/feed/ 0 http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/11/15/google-and-scarab-exchanges-researchers/ http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/11/15/google-and-scarab-exchanges-researchers/#comments Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:42:41 +0000 Viktor http://www.scarabresearch.com/?p=144
“We wish István the best with this new adventure, and are happy for what we feel is a fair swap,” commented Scarab Research CTO Ákos Maróy.

Dr. Fogaras holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. During his PhD training, he specialized in scalable data mining algorithms and introduced new techniques for retrieving related web pages from the hyper-link structure of the web. He started his professional carrier by joining Google Inc., Mountain View, California in 2006 and transferred to Google Switzerland in Zürich in 2008. He contributed to the AdWords and AdSense products as a software engineer, researcher and project leader. He developed new components and initiated projects for fighting click fraud and for targeting ads. He is experienced both in offline log-analysis infrastructure and online serving systems.

“I am very pleased to be joining Scarab at a time when it is making important strides in advancing its world class portfolio of innovative new products and technology,” stated Dr. Fogaras.

]]> http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/11/15/google-and-scarab-exchanges-researchers/feed/ 0 http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/08/05/nys-largest-online-grocer-adopts-scarab-recommender/ http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/08/05/nys-largest-online-grocer-adopts-scarab-recommender/#comments Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:55:20 +0000 Viktor http://www.scarabresearch.com/?p=105 FreshDirect, New York's largest online grocery retailer, is launching a new personalized recommendation service, built on a fully customized version of the Scarab Enterprise recommender product.]]>
Currently in the first phase of the roll-out, it is the starting point of a long-term commitment for Scarab Research, during which we will be dedicated to optimizing FreshDirect’s recommender model and eventually expanding the recommendations to all of FreshDirect’s customers.

“To have FreshDirect among our clients is obviously a source of pride for Scarab Research. As the largest online grocery operating in the New York area, FreshDirect provides us with a unique opportunity to showcase the superior flexibility and performance of our product. FreshDirect is a company that fully appreciates the importance of quality service, and we are very happy they think Scarab is the one that can best deliver.” – said Scarab CEO Viktor Szathmáry.

“When we started out on this project, our main criterion was that the recommender service should be able to provide the level of service and insight our customers are used to. So we spent time and effort on finding a solution that best displayed the qualities we would look for in our overall service offering: insight, usefulness, and a deep knowledge of each and every customer. And that is exactly what Scarab does for us.” – said Dean Marano, CIO – FreshDirect

Try out the Scarab recommender today

If you are interested in launching a cutting edge recommender service in your own webshop, you can sign up for a free trial of Scarab Cloud – the technology is offered in the form of Software as a Service. You can have Scarab Cloud up and running in just a few hours, at no initial costs.

Contact signup@scarabresearch.com.

]]> http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/08/05/nys-largest-online-grocer-adopts-scarab-recommender/feed/ 0 http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/07/20/proudly-presenting-scarab-cloud/ http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/07/20/proudly-presenting-scarab-cloud/#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:17:05 +0000 csaba http://www.scarabresearch.com/?p=100
Our hope is that Scarab Cloud will help smaller online retailers to get back in competition with the biggest sellers by offering the possibility to use enterprise-grade technology at a fraction of enterprise-grade costs.

In that spirit, we have put together a series of subscription plans that will allow even the smallest startup to offer cutting-edge personalized recommendations to their customers. The subscriptions are defined to make certain a positive ROI right from the first month.
Scarab Cloud requires no extra hardware or software, and no maintenance. In fact, you can have it up and running in your webshop in just a few hours.

To top it all, we are offering a 30-day free trial so you can have Scarab Cloud start making money for you without even having to spend any.

To mark the event, we have indulged ourselves with a largely reworked website, which I now urge you to explore to learn more about the many great benefits of Scarab Cloud product.]]> http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/07/20/proudly-presenting-scarab-cloud/feed/ 0 http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/07/14/bookline-hu-launches-personalized-recommendations/ http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/07/14/bookline-hu-launches-personalized-recommendations/#comments Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:23:48 +0000 csaba http://www.scarabresearch.com/?p=91
“It gives us great satisfaction to see the Scarab system running at Bookline.hu reach maturity,” said Viktor Szathmáry, Scarab Research’s CEO. “This system was launched almost exactly a year ago and during this period it has learned a great deal about the preferences of Bookline’s customers. Enough to now step up to the next stage and start offering precision-tooled personalized recommendations to returning customers.”

The personalized service primarily uses registered customers’ purchasing and browsing histories, which it combines with other information to identify the products that are most consistent with the given customer’s personal preferences.

“The real gain with personalized recommendations is the possibility to offer customers a variety of items that are in line with their personal tastes, although they have not searched for them, or even heard about them. Yet the recommended item will very likely be something the user likes. It’s a tool for discovering great new things without bothering to look for them.” – commented Ákos Maróy, Scarab Research’s CTO.

Bookline.hu’s personalized recommendations are displayed straight on registered users’ landing pages in a new box titled “Personalized Recommendations”, taking the place of the previously used Top Sellers box. The new service offers a quick shortcut for customers to find the things they really like, without needing to search or browse Bookline.hu’s growing catalogue of books, digital media, electronics and other products.

The new service is now available to all users, after completing a successful test period. Early statistics show a significant increase in sales performance compared to the previously used Top Sellers module, proving the high quality of the recommendations.]]> http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/07/14/bookline-hu-launches-personalized-recommendations/feed/ 0 http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/04/01/study-shows-scarab-performance-dwarfs-competitors/ http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/04/01/study-shows-scarab-performance-dwarfs-competitors/#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:13:18 +0000 Viktor http://www.scarabresearch.com/?p=36
The study was published in the March 23 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Because of the unusual extremity of the metrics, major media outlets also picked up the story in the following days, to our greatest satisfaction.

Sources:
Daily Mail
The Guardian
Science Daily
]]> http://www.scarabresearch.com/2010/04/01/study-shows-scarab-performance-dwarfs-competitors/feed/ 2 http://www.scarabresearch.com/2009/11/10/congratulations-to-bookline-hu/ http://www.scarabresearch.com/2009/11/10/congratulations-to-bookline-hu/#comments Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:14:10 +0000 Viktor http://www.scarabresearch.com/?p=38 Bookline.hu as a highly engaged, reasonable and effective company managed by some excellent people, and we think they fully deserve the recognition. And of course, we also take some vain pride in this achievement, thinking that the successful introduction of the Scarab Platform to Bookline.hu’s storefront did contribute somewhat to their overall success. Indeed Bookline.hu launched its Scarab-powered product recommendation service a mere 5 months ago, and we are happy to report that the first results are spectacular. With the Scarab Platform, Bookline.hu realized a 54% growth in sales made through product recommendations and a 52% growth in the average order value of shopping carts containing recommendations. Furthermore, in this short period of time, Bookline.hu has managed to fully recoup its investment related to adopting the Scarab Platform – in these times of global recession, we consider this to be a major result.

The Online Business of the Year Award is sponsored by Hungary’s CIB Bank and was distributed for the fifth time this year. Nominees are selected through a public vote, and a selection of the top 10 nominees are judged by a panel of experts.]]> http://www.scarabresearch.com/2009/11/10/congratulations-to-bookline-hu/feed/ 0 http://www.scarabresearch.com/2009/09/23/scarab-signs-distributor-agreement-with-3nf-japan/ http://www.scarabresearch.com/2009/09/23/scarab-signs-distributor-agreement-with-3nf-japan/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:58:18 +0000 Viktor http://www.scarabresearch.com/?p=50
The Scarab Platform is a brand new personalized product recommendation system aiming to deliver the highest quality product recommendations possible to online retailers. The Platform is built on the results of scientific research carried out by Scarab Research, incorporating the latest advances in mathematical and statistical modeling and user-driven collaborative filtering. The Scarab Platform is currently used by Bookline.hu, Hungary’s largest online retailer.

3NF Corporation is a true market innovator in the design and development of systems and applications and has over 10 years of experience in serving its global customers with customized business IT solutions. With a talented and experienced workforce of over 50 people, 3NF is able to offer great value to its customers not only as a developer, but also in the areas of maintenance and training. 3NF defines itself as Integrator of Technology, Business, and People.

Scarab Research is a Budapest-based technology startup engaged in scientific research and systems engineering related to its product recommendation system, the Scarab Platform. Scarab Research is dedicated to helping customers realize the full potential of personalized recommendation technologies, and thus to maximize the income generating potential of the online distributor channel. Scarab Research is ready to make long term commitments with its clients in order to offer a product platform of continued excellence.]]> http://www.scarabresearch.com/2009/09/23/scarab-signs-distributor-agreement-with-3nf-japan/feed/ 0