Greg Sterling of Search Engine Land reports, “Yahoo and Jybe announced that the latter was being acquired by the former. Jybe, which I had not heard of previously, is described by Yahoo as ‘a personalized recommendation company founded with the vision to help people find the things they love to do based on what’s trending in their social circles.’ It sounds like a ‘social search’ or ‘social discovery’ app. Indeed, all five Jybe team members are former search people — and former Yahoo employees: ‘As part of this acquisition, we’re welcoming an extremely talented group of engineers and data scientists who will join Yahoo!’s platform organization, focused on targeting and personalization. This will be a ‘coming home’ for the team — all five are former Yahoos. Arnab Bhattacharjee was the VP of Yahoo!’” Read more

The recommendation problem is a machine-learning problem, says  startup Jybe, and one that it aims to address with its iPhone app that now is in beta. Coming soon (though not immediately) to the iPhone 5, which will require some redesigning to maximize real estate, the mobile app supports earlier iPhones, the iPod touch and iPads running iOS 4.3 or later.

Unlike services such as Yelp, that are more reviews than recommendations, Jybe takes the “serendipitous discovery” approach to real-world goods and services (movies, books, restaurants, and dishes). Founded by CEO Arnab Bhattacharjee, CTO Tim Converse, and chairman of the board Tuoc Vinh Luong, a team with a slate of experience in the search engine industry at names like Yahoo and Powerset, Jybe looks to provide implicit search, i.e. search without query. “The only way to figure out your interests is to figure out who you are, what you like and surface things interesting for you to consume,” says Bhattacharjee.

Read more