NetFlix Challenge
In case you missed it, Netflix is offering a $1 million prize to whomever can improve their referral system. With the likes of Dan Shiffman working on a solution, I think I’ll sit this one out.
I never pay much attention to user ratings on rental sites (I usually don’t have to with IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes around), but I wonder if Netflix ever considered taking into account the value of a good director or actor. For instance, I’d probably see any film Tom Hanks or Jared Leto is in, or any film David Fincher or Sam Mendes directs. It reminds me of when I lived in Baltimore and a nearby video store categorized not by genre, but by Director. How cool was that?!
Seriously, though, I wonder if they’d considered users tagging categories. I’d love to see what the top Sci-Fi or Gangster film would be . . .
August 7th, 2007 at 10:35 am
I was wondering myself the same question, but I found a dazzling answer:
Machine learning considers all the features of the movie can be resumed in just one digit (“the rating”).
I consider myself a social scientist, and this is very hard for me, even considering it seems to work.