Abstract: An information providing system for providing a user with information about at least one product or service corresponding to a new need due to a change in an attribute of the user by the user is provided. A receiving section (20) receives a request for changing a value of an attribute of the user. A user attribute changing section (22) changes the value of the attribute in response to the request. A recommendation target specifying section (24) specifies the at least one product or service to be recommended to the user based on at least one of the value of the attribute before the value is changed and the value of the attribute after the value is changed. An information providing section (28) provides the user with information about the at least one product or service specified by the recommendation target specifying section (24).

Abstract: A branding framework for use in efficiently locating branding resources and applying them throughout a software product. Centrally stored resource files contain branding resources and have namespaces assigned to them. A branding engine of the framework calls a group of resource files as a function of a selected namespace and searches the called group for branding resources to be installed in the software product. In one embodiment, the branding engine searches the called resource files based on the metadata embedded in the resource files.