web commentary

amazon’s recommender system is sure winning me over

Thursday, March 23rd, 2006

i used to feel some of that “oh, the computer can’t really Know what i like… they’re just trying to idolize technology and woo me with the gee whiz factor”
but as the recommendations get better and better, and i think about it more and more, i realize that well-instituted recommender systems are a great example of Not idolizing technology. it’s just smart use of data that is generated by the behaviors of actual people – the people do the determinations of relevance and the computer computes.
that’s the kind of division of labor that excites me.

and i find books i otherwise wouldn’t know about!
my wish list overfloweth!
the “we’ll start thinking that the whole universe is what amazon thinks and have a harder time discovering the margins” argument doesn’t hold a lot of water with me, i have come to realize, because i alReady have a hard time discovering the margins, and i think that there are ways to build new discoveries in. then it’s a “how do we make sure people are listened to” debate, though, not a “do recommender systems work” debate, and that’s good to keep straight, because the first one is a major priority.

evil or not, here we um…

Thursday, January 19th, 2006

as someone personally torn over the whole “do they really mean it?” question when it comes to google and their mantra to not be evil, i am heartily amused (and also rather impressed) by this.

it’s a site that aggregates google-related news items and asks visitors to vote on how evil each report makes them think that google is, and then it tracks google’s average evil rating over time.
A graph plotting the trajectory of google's evilness for December, 2006, based upon the replies of visitors to http://evilornot.info

it sounds kind of like a funny way to let off steam at first, but i think there are glimmers of real meaning underneath some of the information. it interests me to learn, for example, that google scores 4% evil when it comes to this blog post, which states that google will fight the feds’ request for search data tooth and nail; 12% evil when it comes to an earlier post at searchenginewatch saying that google won’t comply (with the same request – it’s hot news in searchtown today, i tell you whut) but msn will (so how evil are they?) , and 34% evil when it comes to a newspaper article discussing yesterday’s announcement that google is venturing into radio (or at least radio ads).

sure, there are real questions to be asked about who comes to a site like this – geeks, and probably only those on either side of the spectrum of opinion, but i think that the relatively simple way of gathering input on different issues and then displaying the aggregate data is pretty neat, and not to be discarded out of hand.

i’ll probably check back at least a few more times as my own angels and demons duke the matter out on my shoulders.