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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.'"

2 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. 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.