Los Gatos, Calif. - Online DVD rental service Netflix (NASD: NFLX) said on Wednesday that developers tasked with coming up with a 10% improvement on its movie recommendation system in its second-annual $1 million challenge fell short, and it instead again awarded a $50,000 "Progress Prize" to the scientists who came closest. The winning team, "BellKor in BigChaos" -- actually a combination of technology developed by two teams -- made a 9.44% improvement in Netflix's recommendation system.

San Francisco - A former video rental store owner-turned collaborative filtering technology developer on Tuesday launched ClerkDogs, a new movie recommendation engine that mixes technology with "video clerk analysis." The company's "Mash It" tool "consists of 35 mood-defining attributes that can be adjusted, resulting in a list of movie matches that bring consumers closer to movies they will love. For example, if you like 'Pulp Fiction' because of its dark humor and characters, you can find other movies based on those specific ingredients."

Los Angeles - Automatic music recommendation service Mufin has launched a public beta, and is now offering applications that connect with iTunes and Facebook. The service has analyzed the actual sounds of some 4 million tracks, and based on these acoustical characteristics, can compile playlists of songs that sound similar to one another.

Tel Aviv, Israel - Taboola, a developer of video recommendation technology, announced on Tuesday that it has raised a $4.5 million second round of funding, led by Evergreen Venture Partners.

Alviso, Calif. - Digital video recorder maker TiVo announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with Entertainment Weekly to offer automatic recording of the magazine's 'What to Watch' TV recommendations. The deal will also enable TiVo subscribers to download EW.com original video programming directly to their TiVo boxes.