Firefly (website)
Encyclopedia
Firefly Network, Inc. was founded in March 1995 by a group of engineers from MIT Media Lab
and some business people from Harvard Business School
, including Pattie Maes
(Media Lab professor), Upendra Shardanand, Nick Grouf, Max Metral, David Waxman and Yezdi Lashkari. At the media lab, under the supervision of Maes, some of the engineers built a music recommendation system
called HOMR (Helpful Online Music Recommendation Service; preceded by RINGO, an email-based system) which used collaborative filtering
to help navigate the music domain to find other artists and albums that a user might like. Firefly's core technology was based on the work done on HOMR.
Firefly's website changed many times. Initially it created a community for users to navigate and discover new artists and albums. Later it was changed to allow users to discover movies, websites, and communities as well. It was well known at the time for its sense of community.
Firefly technology was used by quite a number of well known businesses, including the recommendation engine for barnesandnoble.com, ZDnet, launch.com (later purchased by Yahoo) and MyYahoo.
Since Firefly was amassing large amounts of profile data from end users, privacy became a big concern of the company. They worked with the Federal Government to help define consumer privacy protection in the digital age. They also were key contributors to OPS (Open Profiling Standard), a recommendation to the W3C (along with Netscape
and VeriSign
) to what eventually became known as the P3P
(Platform for Privacy Preferences).
In April 1998, Microsoft Inc. purchased Firefly presumably because of their innovations in privacy, and their long-term goal of creating a safe marketplace for consumers' profile data which the consumer controlled. The Firefly team at Microsoft was largely responsible for the first versions of Microsoft Passport
.
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...
and some business people from Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
, including Pattie Maes
Pattie Maes
Pattie Maes is an associate professor in MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences. She founded and directed the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces group. Previously, she founded and ran the Software Agents group. She currently acts as the associate Department Head for the Media, Arts and Sciences...
(Media Lab professor), Upendra Shardanand, Nick Grouf, Max Metral, David Waxman and Yezdi Lashkari. At the media lab, under the supervision of Maes, some of the engineers built a music recommendation system
Recommendation system
Recommender systems, recommendation systems, recommendation engines, recommendation frameworks, recommendation platforms or simply recommender form or work from a specific type of information filtering system technique that attempts to recommend information items Recommender systems, recommendation...
called HOMR (Helpful Online Music Recommendation Service; preceded by RINGO, an email-based system) which used collaborative filtering
Collaborative filtering
Collaborative filtering is the process of filtering for information or patterns using techniques involving collaboration among multiple agents, viewpoints, data sources, etc. Applications of collaborative filtering typically involve very large data sets...
to help navigate the music domain to find other artists and albums that a user might like. Firefly's core technology was based on the work done on HOMR.
Firefly's website changed many times. Initially it created a community for users to navigate and discover new artists and albums. Later it was changed to allow users to discover movies, websites, and communities as well. It was well known at the time for its sense of community.
Firefly technology was used by quite a number of well known businesses, including the recommendation engine for barnesandnoble.com, ZDnet, launch.com (later purchased by Yahoo) and MyYahoo.
Since Firefly was amassing large amounts of profile data from end users, privacy became a big concern of the company. They worked with the Federal Government to help define consumer privacy protection in the digital age. They also were key contributors to OPS (Open Profiling Standard), a recommendation to the W3C (along with Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
and VeriSign
VeriSign
Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Dulles, Virginia that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc and .tv country-code...
) to what eventually became known as the P3P
P3P
The Platform for Privacy Preferences Project, or P3P, is a protocol allowing websites to declare their intended use of information they collect about browsing users...
(Platform for Privacy Preferences).
In April 1998, Microsoft Inc. purchased Firefly presumably because of their innovations in privacy, and their long-term goal of creating a safe marketplace for consumers' profile data which the consumer controlled. The Firefly team at Microsoft was largely responsible for the first versions of Microsoft Passport
Windows Live ID
Windows Live ID is a single sign-on web service developed and provided by Microsoft that allows users to log in to many websites using one account...
.
Homepages
The Firefly website had distinctive design and graphics. Early designs featured bright colors and a fun and eclectic look. Later redesigns reflected the company's push towards corporate customers and desire to de-emphasize the Firefly community website.External links
- A good description of the company and products
- Suck.com review of Firefly
- Spanish Firefly - a Suck.com parody
- Firefly's archived corporate website from the wayback machine
- FIREFLY: THE WEB SITE THAT HAS MAD AVE. BUZZING, Business Week
- OPS Press Release
- Salon Article on Firefly and OPS
- Microsoft Press Release on Acquisition
- Wired Article on Microsoft Acquisition
- Wired on Firefly.com being shutdown
- HBS bulletin on Firefly