Archive for the ‘Netflix prize’ Category

How the Netflix algorithm works

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

You use the Netflix website to rate films that you have seen on a scale from 1 = hated to 5 = loved.

The Netflix algorithm compares your film ratings against other Netflix customers in order to calculate a predicted rating for every film in their database.

This enables Netflix to suggest

The Netflix “algorithm” works by calculating a predicted rating for every film in their database based on how you and other Netflix customers have rated the films you have already seen.

Having a “predicted rating” makes it much easier for you to find films you would enjoy watching.

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Who wants to win a million dollars ?

Sunday, October 21st, 2007

This is old news for many, but Netflix.com has been running a competition for computer programmers. The prize is one million dollars!

The competition involves creating a better algorithm for recommending DVDs to Netflix customers.

When you rent a DVD from Netflix you can use their website to rate that DVD on a scale of one to five. The Netflix algorithm compares your film ratings to the ratings of other Netflix customers in order to suggest films you might like to see.

The first programmer (or team of programmers) to develop a recommendation algorithm that is 10% better at predicting film ratings will win the prize of one million dollars.

This is not easy (for reasons I will explain in a future blog post) and after over a year of work by many teams, the best algorithms are only 8.5% better than the Netflix one.

The true value of the Netflize prize is not the prize itself. The value of the predicting algorithm to both Netflix and the winning team far outweighs the value of the 1 million dollar prize.

For more info: www.netflixprize.com

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