Comments on: amazon’s recommender system is sure winning me over http://kynthiabru.net/blog/archives/136 Sat, 19 May 2012 10:28:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3 By: Tim http://kynthiabru.net/blog/archives/136#comment-146 Tim Sun, 26 Mar 2006 20:13:02 +0000 http://kynthiabru.net/blog/archives/136#comment-146 The gold box thing seems to have varied in its purposes -- for quite a while it did seem to be mostly a way of trying to get people to realize "Hey, I never new Amazon carried that sort of stuff". More recently, though, it does seem to have been pulling in more of the sorts of things that come from the edges of your recommendations -- though the last time that I checked it, I was back to the home defibulator kit and some other misc. stuff. The gold box thing seems to have varied in its purposes — for quite a while it did seem to be mostly a way of trying to get people to realize “Hey, I never new Amazon carried that sort of stuff”. More recently, though, it does seem to have been pulling in more of the sorts of things that come from the edges of your recommendations — though the last time that I checked it, I was back to the home defibulator kit and some other misc. stuff.

]]> By: Matt http://kynthiabru.net/blog/archives/136#comment-144 Matt Sat, 25 Mar 2006 04:38:38 +0000 http://kynthiabru.net/blog/archives/136#comment-144 i think amazon's recommendation system is wildly ridiculous. case 1: the gold box. is this an effort to clear out inventory or to get me to buy something? either way, i'd encourage them to not put items i already own in the gold box. case 2: one time buys. i don't shop at amazon often. but i did buy some books on kilimanjaro years ago for my dad. and i STILL get recommendations on kilimanjaro. i guess i need to use it more. but i can't say i'm motivated. i tried fixing some of it once and it took too long. i think amazon’s recommendation system is wildly ridiculous.

case 1: the gold box. is this an effort to clear out inventory or to get me to buy something? either way, i’d encourage them to not put items i already own in the gold box.

case 2: one time buys. i don’t shop at amazon often. but i did buy some books on kilimanjaro years ago for my dad. and i STILL get recommendations on kilimanjaro.

i guess i need to use it more. but i can’t say i’m motivated. i tried fixing some of it once and it took too long.

]]> By: Tim http://kynthiabru.net/blog/archives/136#comment-142 Tim Thu, 23 Mar 2006 18:08:00 +0000 http://kynthiabru.net/blog/archives/136#comment-142 The Amazon recommendation system is pretty fun to play with. I'd sort of had it as a hobby of mine for a while to rate as much as I could just to see what would happen. The end result is that it's actually pretty good at figuring out what I like, but not quite as good at figuring out what I don't like. (i.e.: marking something as "not interested" doesn't really seem to have a lot of effect to indicate that you're not interested in that type of thing) Current counts: Items you own (847) Items you've rated (2169) Items you've marked "Not interested" (836) The Amazon recommendation system is pretty fun to play with. I’d sort of had it as a hobby of mine for a while to rate as much as I could just to see what would happen. The end result is that it’s actually pretty good at figuring out what I like, but not quite as good at figuring out what I don’t like. (i.e.: marking something as “not interested” doesn’t really seem to have a lot of effect to indicate that you’re not interested in that type of thing)

Current counts:
Items you own (847)
Items you’ve rated (2169)
Items you’ve marked “Not interested” (836)

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