Friday, December 12th, 2008

Computing Consumer Preferences

The Pandora service picks related music based on what it calls the 'music genome project.' Courtesy Pandora

From stores to online radio stations, giving you suggestions for what you MIGHT like based on what you DO like is big business. Sometimes it's simple - people who bought the ElectroRobot 5000 toy also bought lots of batteries, for instance -- so stores know to recommend one with the purchase of the other. In more subjective fields, however, such as music and art, the calculations become more difficult. Video rental company Netflix is offering a prize for improvements to its recommendation algorithms. We'll talk with people behind two popular services, Netflix and Pandora, about how they try to crunch the numbers on your preferences.