Company, which employs about 50 in Corvallis, is now known as just 'Strands'

By BENNETT HALL

Gazette-Times Reporter

Once again, the Corvallis-based tech company MyStrands has broadened its mission and shortened its name.

Founded as MusicStrands in 2003, the venture started out by marketing a suite of Web-based software applications to help people organize their MP3 files and discover new music based on their current listening habits.

In 2006, the private firm evolved into MyStrands, with a new emphasis on mobile applications and online personalization. It also expanded its push into social networking with features such as partyStrands, an application that lets partygoers use their cell phones to influence music selection, upload text messages to video screens and post party pics to the Web.

Now the company has morphed yet again, moving into the realm of personal finance and abbreviating its name to just plain Strands.

The firm's latest offering, still in the beta testing phase, is called moneyStrands and was enabled by the purchase of a small startup called Expensr. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

With Expensr's free Web application as a backbone, moneyStrands allows users to view and manage all of their online financial accounts in a single spot on the Internet, analyze their financial position and compare their spending habits with groups of similar users.

"We think there's a need to consolidate our dispersed financial data into one place so we can have a better idea of where we stand," said Strands spokesman Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria. "We think also we can apply our recommendation technologies to the financial space."

To that end, moneyStrands will use a collaborative filtering technique to recommend investment products based on an individual's current financial profile.

Like Expensr before it, moneyStrands will be a free Web application. For mobile computing aficionados, customized versions are available for use with BlackBerry, iPhone and Nokia browsers.

Following the business model it developed for its music applications, Strands intends to create multiple revenue streams for its new financial management tool, likely including advertising opportunities and commissions for sales of investment products and services. For now, the focus is on growing the market.

"We want to create a user base, and then we will monetize it," Aldamiz-echevarria said.

The Expensr acquisition is the first such move since Strands stuffed its war chest last year with $49 million in private funding, bringing total venture capital investment to $55 million. The company now employs 150 people in the United States and abroad, with about 40 in its Corvallis office.

And the name?

"It keeps shrinking," Aldamiz-echevarria acknowledged with a laugh.

"There are two reasons for that," he explained. "One is that we refer to ourselves as Strands or Stranders. But also we are going to launch different verticals, and we want the public to identify those (applications) with us - in the case of money, moneyStrands; in the case of music, musicStrands.

"Think of Google News, Google Maps and all the different versions of Google," he added.

"Same with Strands."

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