Emerging Recommendation Technology Helps Pick Shows

"Imagine you're listening to the radio in your bedroom. A song comes on that catches your ear - let's say "Ayo Technology," a hit single from the latest 50 Cent album. It's just the kind of jam that puts you in a good mood, but when it's over, a tinge of disappointment sets in. Surely the next song won't measure up. But what if it did?".........

Possessing an uncanny ability to relate to the sentiment above, I'm left to ponder what if the radio could predict what song I would enjoy hearing next....what a joy it would be to listen to all my favorite songs without ever having to skip a single one!!! And what if this same concept applied to movies, online games, and television shows alike! Apparently that is the direction recommendation technology is heading.

Recommendation Technology attempts to make educated guesses as to what else may interest you and is an extremely useful mechanism for any company selling items or any company that has a platform to distribute items. Companies have started realizing that perhaps the most effective marketing tool lies in their ability to personalize "suggestions" and tailor these recommendations to the interests of each individual. Given the plethora of information available via the internet, it can be challenging to find exactly what you want to find and as studies suggest, sometimes you don't know exactly what you're looking for which can amplify the problem.

While recommendation technology is not new, it has not been very effective in the past. As inferred in the "My TiVo thinks I'm gay" plot, perhaps recommender systems attempted to be too intuitive and less personalized initially. After recognizing the benefits available by offering more accurate suggestions (increased sales and session length) and the consequences seen by offering inaccurate suggestions (less sales, lower likelihood of returning), systems are seeking to become more sophisticated. "When you get down into the deep mathematical analyses of this stuff, and you have good data on content and users, you can make good predictions of what users will like."

Even more interesting is the fact that personalization isn't limited to just the web. Researchers believe that more than 1/3 of daily television viewing will be on-demand in the next 5 years. As an advocate of personalization, Im intrigued to see what other areas can be explored beyond the internet and television...

Emerging Recommendation Technology Helps Pick Shows