50 Intelligent Recommendation Engines for the Most Intelligent Minds

Regular, generic searching just isn’t enough when you want to find references and websites that will supply you with quality information and research support. From exploring new music to finding new books and authors to discovering fascinating news stories from around the world, these intelligent recommendation engines will help you tap into the best of the web, for business and pleasure.

Books

Get recommendations for new titles, authors and genres to read.

1. What Should I Read Next?: This recommendation engine currently has 65,000 books in its vault.
2. Shelfari: With Shelari, you can view lists of highest rated and popular books in your favorite genres.
3. Reader2: Reader2 (Reader squared) recommends books you might like based on categories you’ve already tried out.
4. LibraryThing: This is part social network, part recommendation engine that works along with the Library of Congress catalog, Amazon.com, and more.
5. GoodReads: Get book recommendations sent to you from other users.
6. Books We Like: This user-generated recommendation site is marketed as a "giant common bookshelf."
7. Google Books: Google recommends books to you based on any thumbnail you click on.
8. Books-A-Million: Every time you pull information about a book on Books-A-Million’s website, they’ll list similar choices for you.
9. Alibris: Popular used, rare and out-of-print bookseller Alibris also recommends titles to you based on your searches.
10. Powell’s: Powell’s recommends its own favorites plus customized reading lists for you.

Internet Research

These recommendation engines use different strategies to analyze your searches and bring you quality websites.

11. Google Reader: Once you’ve selected a couple of journals or blogs to follow, this tool will direct you to similar pages.
12. StumbleUpon: You can give thumbs up or thumbs down to different websites StumbleUpon throws at you until they start sending you the quality sites you like.
13. Powerset: This information engine finds facts, summaries and more from Wikipedia and other websites.
14. Popego: Popego aims to bring you quality information from the web based on your searches.
15. Sproose: Add your own recommendations to Sproose to keep the search results even more exact.
16. Hakia: Hakia is a semantic search engine that only brings up quality websites recommended by librarians.
17. Kreeo: This search community connects you to the sites you’re really looking for.
18. Twine: Twine makes a point to get to know your interests and your online activity so that it can help you find new groups and websites.
19. Cuil: Cuil finds websites based on your keywords, then analyzes the page to make sure it’s what you really want. It sends you recommendations of sites, while keeping your search history private.
20. Ujiko: This is a highly interactive engine that lets you throw away or "heart" results to help the site discover your preferences.
21. Cluuz: Cluuz organizes search results according to what it thinks you consider most important.
22. Xmarks: Install this bookmark sync manager to get customized, quality search results.
23. Juice: Juice is a Firefox add-on that finds related information after you select "chunks" of text.
24. CiteULike: This journal and scholarly reference search engine lets you share articles and helps you discover new references.

Multimedia

From podcasts to documentaries to new music, you’ll never stop discovering new arts and entertainment when you use these tools.

25. Amazon: Amazon’s Recommendations system crawls your wish lists, shopping and search history, and more.
26. Joost: Look up classic movies and music, plus new releases, documentaries historical live performances, and more.
27. Netflix: Netflix recommends all kinds of documentaries, movies and concerts for you based on your preferences. Vote on things you’ve already watched to tailor the recommendations even further.
28. HBO: Get access to HBO’s groundbreaking specials, movies and television series while chatting with other fans and getting suggestions for what to watch.
29. Last.fm: Last.fm brings you music, videos and concerts after you search and play your favorites.
30. Pandora: Create new stations and get recommendations for new songs, artists based on your listening history.
31. MeeMix: Search for artists and create stations so that you can discover new music.
32. Zune: Get recommendations for podcasts, music, video and more from Zune.
33. ulike: The more you share on this site, the more tailored recommendations you’ll get for books, art, music and more.
34. liveplasma: If you want to learn more about music and movies from other countries, use this engine.
35. inSuggest: inSuggest makes recommendations for images and websites based on your tastes.
36. Veoh: Videos, TV shows, movies, music and whole channels can be discovered on this site.
37. Hulu: Watch TV shows and trailers and get recommendations for more things to watch with Hulu.

Current Events

Customize your news sites, organizing favorite reporters, preferred news sections, and more.

38. Evri: Evri lets you browse and discover news stories in politics, business, technology and other categories based on the trending topics everyone’s talking about.
39. Kosmix: Kosmix is a "beta-ish" news engine that brings you videos, articles and more.
40. Daylife: Use this search engine and aggregated news site when you want articles, videos, photos and categories streamed according to your preferences.
41. Alltop: Alltop saves your recent topics and customize the way you receive your news.
42. Congoo: This real-time news and networking site lets you fully customize the headlines and stories you want to read.
43. iGoogle: iGoogle brings you top news and displays blog posts, YouTube videos and more based on your preferences.
44. Wikio: Search news blogs, vote on stories, browse articles by categories, and get recommendations for interesting pieces to read.
45. getputs.com: Getputs.com is a news recommendation site that has categories like finance, food, business, art, investment, health, travel, software and more.
46. DailyMe: DailyMe is set up like a traditional newspaper website, but you can save clips, search for stories and writers, add content, organize your favorites and get directed to related stories.
47. Digg: Digg’s recommendation engine brings you content related to your Digg history.

Miscellaneous

From trip planning to customized search, here are even more intelligent recommendation engines you need to check out.

48. Listal: Users on this site list the stuff they love, including books, music, movies, and more.
49. GoPlanit: This is chiefly a travel planning site but it can also help you learn more about a certain part of the world you’re studying.
50. Rollyo: Personalize your own search engines by selecting different categories.