Last week, I published a post on the Netflix tech blog. The post, entitled “Netflix Recommendations: Beyond the 5 stars” describes how recommendations have evolved at Netflix since the Netflix Prize. If you haven’t read the post, do so now.
The post stirred quite some interesting reactions and many comments. Here is a list of some of the ones I picked up, grouped by “category”:
- Our post got picked up by the usual content aggregators:
- Hacker News posted a link to the post, and as always attracted a great number of comments
-
Likewise, Reddit also attracted some interesting comments.
- Some online media gave a summary of our post:
- Engadget was the first one to have a brief piece with several interesting comments: Netflix explains its recommendation system, can’t find a reason for Adam Sandler’s last movie
- The CNN also had a longer article, with a detailed summary of our post: Inside Netflix’s popular ‘recommendation’ algorithm
-
Econsultancy reflects on our post by calling us Netflix: the algorithm company
- Others focused on the figure we gave on the post related to the percentage of views coming from recommendations.
- The Verge picked up on this for their piece: Netflix offers details on its recommendation engine, says it guides 75 percent of viewership
- Also PC Magazine focused on this issue, but gave a more detailed summary of the post: 75 Percent of Netflix Viewing Based on Recommendations
-
Finally, Business Insider, also focused on this issue in their Netflix’s Recommendation Engine Drives 75% Of Viewership
- The last few reactions I picked up, focused on the reasons why we are not using the winning entry to the Netflix Prize .
- The Next Web, entitled their piece Remember Netflix’s $1m algorithm contest? Well, here’s why it didn’t use the winning entry
- Techdirt focused only exclusively on this issue in their Why Netflix Never Implemented The Algorithm That Won The Netflix $1 Million Challenge
- Both the previous articles are ok, but a bit misleading in that they seem to imply that not implementing the final solution to the prize might have been a loss for Netflix. But, the prize to the worst uninformed and ill-intentioned reaction to our post has to go to Forbes’ What The Failed 1m Netflix Prize Tells Us About Business Advice. It should be clear to anyone that the Netflix Prize was a huge success in all metrics. And, Netflix had already recovered the $1m long before the competition ended.
