A Typology of Personalisation- & Customisation Services

In my PhD project I examine how European providers of Public Service Media (PSMs), (also known as Public Service Broadcasters) relate to the concepts of customisation and personalisation. When examining the field of personalisation services, I found a general inconsistency in the use of the term ‘personalisation’ and an overlap with the term ‘customisation’. Academic texts from computer science and marketing use the terms differently. When marketing texts talk about customisation (e.g. of web pages) the user is passive, she receives a system generated presentation of products matching her user profile. When computer science texts use the term ‘customisation’, the user is active, e.g. configuring a service or application. When the term ‘personalisation’ is used, the differences are even more diverse. Also in praxis – in user interfaces – terms are applied inconsistently. This paper suggests a typology for customisation and personalisation services.