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Preference Engines Side-Effects in Online Retail

Posted by samzenpus on from the if-you-like-a-you'll-love-a+ dept.

jasonla writes "The Los Angeles Times ran a Column One article about the impact preference engines have on consumer buying habits. From the article: 'In the physical world, I bump into all kinds of people by chance. But online, if recommenders were perfect, I can have the option of talking to only people who are just like me. There's a danger that if we don't have some level of shared interaction, it can be destructive to our social cohesion.'"

7 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Cliche. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    "I can have the option of talking to only people who are just like me. "

    Welcome to slashdot.

  2. Perfect by superub3r · · Score: 2, Funny

    "But online, if recommenders were perfect, I can have the option of talking to only people who are just like me."

    Does that mean you are perfect?

  3. Cut Out the Middlemen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    "I can have the option of talking to only people who are just like me."

    Uhmmm... why not just talk to yourself.

  4. Re:Is this for real? by kfg · · Score: 2, Funny

    . . .they don't work anyway.

    Tell me about it. The Amazon preference engine keeps trying to sell me underwear, but now that I'm old I don't wear underwear, I don't go to church and I don't cut my hair.

    Clearly these underwear wearing people they keep trying to "match me up" with are rather unlike myself.

    And two parrotheads are obviously not better than one.

    KFG

  5. Re:Moderation system by Clover_Kicker · · Score: 3, Funny

    > In a way, Slashdot is a pioneer in this area. Posts which are
    > unacceptable to the mainstream are moderated down, effectively
    > "disappearing" them to most viewers.

    > What the preference engine does is to tailor this to the individual
    > viewer. Thus groupthink can operate at very refined levels. Provided
    > that there is sufficient clustering of opinions, isolated
    > communities-of-opinion form.

    Golly, that doesn't sound anything like Usenet killfiles 15 years ago.

  6. Sorry, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
    "I guess it's possible that one of the morons I've chosen to ignore would suddenly one day, 1000-monkeys-on-1000-typewriters style, present some cogent insightful bit of info to make me reconsider my already-carefully-considered viewpoint."

    Looks like today isn't your day.

  7. I don't know about you, but.... by xgadflyx · · Score: 2, Funny
    "Music discovery is very social," said Jon Herlocker, computer science professor at Oregon State University and co-founder of MusicStrands, which makes music recommendations by tracking what its subscribers do


    It sounds like an oxymoron when a computer science professor talks about something being 'very social'.
    --
    Civilization, the death of dreams.