Touch Firmware 2.0 Discover or book recommendations

[feedbakbwr]

Does it offer recommendations based on your library (side loaded) or just your books bought from Kobo?

[murg]

Good question.

If it is making recommendations from your sideloaded books, that means that it is sending this information back to Kobo's servers.

I think that it would be difficult to determine what a sideloaded book is with any accuracy, but that may be good enough for determining your recommendations. Matching on the Title, Author, and other ID information (like an ISBN) may get Kobo close enough to your sideloaded books to use them for recommending others.

[taming]

Kobo only uses three sources for making recommendations:

• Books you have purchased from Kobo
• Your behaviour on the Kobo site/server that is captured on their end when you are signed in
• Answers you give when taking/answering a Kobo survey

[nogle]

I have noted that going through the "discover" area and marking books as not interested or giving star rating to ones I have read has greatly improved the accuracy of the recommendations.

[taming]

Originally Posted by nogle

I have noted that going through the "discover" area and marking books as not interested or giving star rating to ones I have read has greatly improved the accuracy of the recommendations.

I added "server" after site in my post to be more accurate and capture that kind of thing. You're right--it really does improve things.

Now, if someone checks that they have read something, and it is NOT a book they bought from Kobo, it would increase the possibility that the person might think that Kobo was looking at sideloaded books purchased elsewhere.

[ltr]

I'd pay money if they'd stop recommending Romance novels to me................

[taming]

Originally Posted by ltr

I'd pay money if they'd stop recommending Romance novels to me................

I hear you. A Publisher uses that as a descriptor/metadata for some book we don't think of as a romance and we're tagged. I would like an option that says something like "Don't count this book against me; I bought it for my husband."

[PeterT]

You buy Romance for your husband! I made the mistake early on of getting some for ,y wife... sigh.... still get blooming Romance recommendations!

[plib]

Originally Posted by ltr

I'd pay money if they'd stop recommending ................

Oh, hang on, I already did.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by taming

Kobo only uses three sources for making recommendations:

• Books you have purchased from Kobo
• Your behaviour on the Kobo site/server that is captured on their end when you are signed in
• Answers you give when taking/answering a Kobo survey

Interesting. I've only done one of those three things (done a search on specific titles or authors on the Kobo online shop — and they've mostly not been listed), and the recommendations I'm getting aren't in any way close to things I've looked at or done a search on — not by genre, subject or author.

So I do wonder how their algorithm works.

[taming]

I think they start with a general set of recommendations they give everyone who starts out without a history to influence the recommendations. When we continue to provide very little information,the recommendation engine (probably using wrong word here) doesn't have anything to go on and the general kind of recommendations persist.

[ltr]

Originally Posted by taming"

I hear you. A Publisher uses that as a descriptor/metadata for some book we don't think of as a romance and we're tagged.

Yeah, I often disagree with the assigned book categories. One that I find most questionable is the "Kids and Teens" tag. I've read some great books with that tag. (Example, Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli).

ltr