Inputs about the targeted customer are fed into the recommendation process to provide personalized recommendations. An application that uses no inputs about the targeted customer can produce only non-personal recommendations. Adding one or more types of inputs allows the recommender application to personalize recommendations based on the customer's current activity, the
customer's long-term preferences, or both. While there are multiple ways of categorizing the inputs from the targeted customer, one compelling set of categories evolves from the customer’s approach toward providing the input.