> -----Original Message----- > From: Erika L. Walker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 10:22 AM > To: CF-Community > Subject: RE: Netflix prize > > Just heard a great news story on the tele (Jeremy Paxman's Newsnight) > about > companies doing this sort of thing.
There was a great article in Wired a month or two ago about one of the front-runners. A lone coder holding his own (and actually moving up) against several large groups. Turns out all of his advances were based not on new technology but on psychology. For example he added into his system a rule that people rated movies in "clumps". If rating a movie, "X", in isolation you might rate it, say, a "3", but if rating two movies at the same time, "Y" and "X" the second one would based on the first one. If you liked the first one better and gave it a "3" you might give "X" a "2" in comparison. He also added code which dealt with real-world events: people tend (he theorized) to rate movies higher during the holiday season for example. People from a large sports market might rate a movie higher if their team just won the championship, etc. It's all common sense and old research, really, but he was the first to apply it practically to the dataset. So cool. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;192386516;25150098;k Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:260645 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
