The idea that what you read directly correlates to what you're likely to buy might sound either obvious or ridiculous, but a new firm is betting that equation works and has signed major partners to test that idea, reports Advertising Age.
The firm, called Aggregate Knowledge, comes from one of the founders of Tribe.net, the social-networking site just acquired by Cisco. The firm noticed that people with similar reading behavior tended to connect, and it's now betting those data patterns can predict shopping behavior.

Retailer Overstock.com, news site WashingtonPost.com and others have signed on to provide data on their users that will eventually be used to feed people a combination of reading and buying recommendations. The idea of recommendations, the company says, is more palatable to some than straight ad delivery.

Aggregate Knowledge is both looking for computer-generated recommendations and plans to tap into personalized reviews; those will come as a result of a just-announced partnership with Bazaarvoice, which manages customer reviews for retailers including Sears and Dell.