The power of recommendation
I went to Amazon during lunch to buy a book recommended by Tim Spaulding over at the LibraryThing Thingology blog:
While I was there I noticed Amazon recommending this book:
which I couldn't resist. When I added it to my cart, I was also offered this recommenation:
which again, I couldn't resist. Amazon then suggested this book:
I really like some of the things that Elias has done with Processing - so I added that one to my cart too.
At that point, I quickly hit the 'Check Out' button before I went broke. Amazon's recommender turned my $27 order into a $121 order. Multiply that by a million and it is easy to see why companies like Amazon and Netflix are investing so much in recommender systems.
Love this post - brings back memories - Amazon uses Collaborative Filtering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_filtering). I was responsible for promoting a CF algorithm that came out of the University of Minnesota about 10 years ago - our first big customer - Amazon!
We sighed Billboard magazine for music recommendations too - and had big plans for the technology. In call centers, grocery stores, etc.
I'll have to look how its progressed now - I am sure it has changed a bit in 10 years ;-)
But the concept hasn't changed one bit....
Posted by Taylor Allis on January 31, 2008 at 01:54 PM EST #
this is a provocative example. i wonder about the impact of a social network on this recommendation. how many others will buy these same books as a result of a) the recommendation and b) your reference thereto? i'll bet that multiplier is interesting.
Posted by Todd Carter on January 31, 2008 at 04:58 PM EST #
My first Amazon experience was quite similar, my order went from one $20 book to about 5 books adding up to something like $100.
The funny thing is I still haven't read them all...
Posted by James Brunskill on February 03, 2008 at 04:25 PM EST #