MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Is there an alternative to http://whatshouldireadnext.com/

vivaldirules · 09-21-2009, 01:35 PM

I saw this NYTimes article and thought it might be of interest. Netflix (a DVD rental company) offered a $1 million prize to any person or team that would create a program to help subscribers pick movies to watch that they might like and do it at least "10% better" than their own Cinematch software. They ended up with two teams who succeeded. But they were given a database of 100 million movie ratings to calibrate with (!). This has led to a second contest where more data, including gender and demographic information, will be provided.

I don't know how Cinematch works but if it takes that much data to build models to do just 10% better, I think we're pretty much out of luck getting something similar for helping us pick books unless Amazon does it. No one else will have that much data available.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...ew-contest/?hp

09-21-2009, 01:35 PM	#17
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	I saw this NYTimes article and thought it might be of interest. Netflix (a DVD rental company) offered a $1 million prize to any person or team that would create a program to help subscribers pick movies to watch that they might like and do it at least "10% better" than their own Cinematch software. They ended up with two teams who succeeded. But they were given a database of 100 million movie ratings to calibrate with (!). This has led to a second contest where more data, including gender and demographic information, will be provided. I don't know how Cinematch works but if it takes that much data to build models to do just 10% better, I think we're pretty much out of luck getting something similar for helping us pick books unless Amazon does it. No one else will have that much data available. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...ew-contest/?hp