Interrelativity

Category: Recommender Systems

  • Thumbs down on Netflix ditching of 5-star ratings for a thumbs-based system

    The Netflix video streaming and DVD service announced Thursday that it is switching from a 5-star rating system to a simpler thumbs up / thumbs down system. I've been a Netflix user (and fan) for many years, and love their personalized ratings predictions. I have often used their model in presentations and brainstorming involving other services…

  • musica requitur sequitur: songs that must be played in sequence

    Since my shoulder surgery 4 weeks ago, I've been spending a lot of time developing software and listening to Pandora. The pain meds (oxycodone & hydrocodone) put me in a bit of a brain fog, limiting the effective breadth and depth of my thinking (and doing), but a reasonably well-defined coding task seemed ideally suited…

  • Recommender Systems in Retail Stores: Bridging the Gaps between eCommerce and Physical Shopping

    Advertising Age posted an article yesterday on Olay Translates Killer Online App to Retail Aisles, describing some recent trial deployments of special kiosks in physical stores that give shoppers access to online recommender systems. These systems have access to online representations of offline inventories – or, at least, product lines typically carried – in the…

  • Innovating at MyStrands, Seattle

    It’s been a little over a month since I left Nokia and started principally instigating at MyStrands, Seattle. Most of my time thus far has been devoted to talking with people and looking at places, as my top two initial instigative goals are to attract a dream team and setup shop in a dream space.…

  • Entrepreneurial Karma: Call for Early-Stage Recommender System Startups

    This is pretty cool (though I’m admittedly biased): a mid-stage startup (MyStrands, the company I work for) that has recently secured funding now offering an opportunity to fund an earlier stage startup – a sort of entrepreneurial karma, where we keep the investment flowing in ways that will [hopefully] benefit us all. This initiative is…

  • The Paradox of Choice: Decisions, Happiness and Appreciation

    In addition to seeding my last post – on Dark Nights of the Soul – by sending me a link to an evocative image, Yogi also sent me a link to a 20-minute video of Barry Schwartz giving a presentation on The Paradox of Choice a few years ago at a TED conference. The presentation…

  • Re-rethinking Recommendation Engines: Psychology and the Influence of False Negatives

    Alex Iskold posted an interesting article on Rethinking Recommendation Engines on ReadWriteWeb yesterday. I like (and recommend) his crisp and clear delineation of different types or sources of recommendations – personalized (based on your past behavior), social (based on past behavior of others who are similar to you) and item-based (based on the recommendable items…