Tools such as surveys, postcards, and membership clubs provide ways to hone in on potential customers for particular products, but may not be practical for large mailing lists. Intelligent Agents are a fairly new World Wide Web technology which provides an interesting new approach to reach customers. The product Firefly, recently featured in a New York Times Magazine article, exemplifies this new technology. Firefly uses techniques of artificial intelligence to attempt to project what a user would like, based on what the user does like. At the Firefly site, the user is invited to implement a simple enrollment procedure to become a member.
Members can access several areas, including movies and music .
Once entering one of those areas, the member is presented with a questionnaire inviting him to rate ten movies or ten pop artists. He is then invited to rate another ten, and then, if he wishes, another ten. Each set of ratings determines what choices the member will get the next time, as Firefly attempts to hone in on his preferences. After having entered twenty or thirty ratings, Firefly will then recommend movies or pop artists that the member might enjoy, based on the preferences he has already indicated. Firefly makes its determinations based on what other members have already input.