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Netflix Prize Competitor Already Beats Netflix
Baldrson writes "Within the first week of the announcement of The Netflix Prize a team has already beaten Netflix's own movie recommendation algorithm. This is pretty impressive given the previously quoted researcher who said: 'You're competing with 15 years of really smart people banging away at the problem.' The team is WXYZConsulting.com apparently registered by a data mining professor named Yi Zhang. Congratulations are in order for Netflix and Prof. Zhang's team who are demonstrating, yet again, the power of prizes to accelerate progress."
the power of prizes to accelerate progress
Hmm...In that case, I'm offering $1000 USD to the person or group that can find me the perfect girlfriend!
I think this demonstrates how important "many eyeballs" are in problem solving. Intelligent people "who have been attacking the problem for 15 years" can still fail to see an "obvious" solution. I shudder at how many scientific fields probably have obvious solutions that aren't being found because only a small cadre of people have been exposed to the problem. I also shudder at people who artificially set up barriers to understanding their own fields, in order to protect their own egos. The attitude of "journal articles need to be cryptic or they must not be important" needs to go.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Looking in the competition rules, I was surpised to see that:
Residents of the province of Quebec in Canada are ineligible to participate. Residents of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Sudan are also ineligible to participate.
Is Quebec the next target for regime change?
This shows that greed can be used in a positive way.
That is all I have to say, anyone else have anything to add?
what is the actual prize they will receive? You'd think within 30 seconds of looking at a site about a prize I'd know what the prize was.
Quite a few teams have beaten the Cinematch engine, but not by the required 10% for the prize. The submission is in error. They also haven't won the 1% Progress prize yet, but they're very very close.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
... says "Por la boca muere el pez", which means something like "Fish die because of their mouths". We'll see if that research team can swim
When my Karma level reaches 0 I feel in piece with the Universe
although yes they have "beatten netflix", they haven't won the prize yet.
they have about a 1% improvement on the netflix algorithm, but the prize is for 10%. they are the frontrunner for the progress prize, though, being the people who are the closest to the mark after a year (i think).
on top of that, netflix has been doing improvements on their own code in the meantime, and its been looking like around a 1% improvement, also.
Sometimes one person with a different perspective on a problem can see something that a groups of "experts" had never thought of, or had discounted because they assumed it wouldn't work.
That's why a fresh perspective on a problem can be quite enlightening, and why I tend to go ask other programmers for their ideas/comments when I get stuck. I don't know everything, and I sometimes make stupid assumptions or forget to consider certain technquies. No group is immune from this.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I have perfected the perfect movie recommendation mechanism. It's called a "friend."
I hold a patent on the idea, and I've copyrighted the statement "hey, I saw this movie you'd like."
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The team is WXYZConsulting.com apparently registered by a data mining professor named Yi Zhang.
Maybe they should run a contest to come up with a better business name? Something that doesn't sound like a fly-by-night operation or a variation of something already in the phone book.
It would be nice to see the algorithm used, if only to see if it can be improved.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
There is always someone/something better out there. I guess enough money can bring that out. I bet if they tried again in two months they would find something even better.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
You know, I've never seen recommendation applications worth much of anything. Ringo was okay, until M$ turned it into Firefly, which died in 1999(?). It will be interesting if this turns out well, or if it turns out like TiVO, which in Patton Oswalt's words, is like "working with a retarded kid." "No, TiVo, NO! Westerns aren't cartoons! / But you like horsies! Liar!"
"Tu fui, ego eris" - Virgil
Progress!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
IMDB's recommendation system for movies is so bad it's funny in it's own right. You could look up a science fiction movie, and it would recommend a head cleaner cassette for a Betamax VCR.
Maybe it is just me, but a RMSE of .9430 is not better than a RMSE of .9419
It looks like everyone has just ignored the fact that netflix engine gave different scores for each section...
I think it also demonstrates how the oft-used mantra of "if it needs to be done, it will be done" doesn't always work without some incentive. One of the hurdles of OSS is that the only things that get worked on are the things that people want to work on. The love of developing software can only get you so far (and wow, has it gotten us far). But for some things to advance, it will need financial backing. It's a prickly problem for the OSS community.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Formal competitions regarding problems like these may or may not exist.
I think solving one of them (especially under computer science) would lead to significant employment opportunities.
Oh please. It took them years before they figured out how to handle multi-disk sets correctly. Yes, their people must be smart (designing a orders database that scales up to a rapidly growing customer base is not easy), but none of their smarts has been directed at customer-facing technology.
The shortcomings of Netflix recommendation system really have more to do with bureaucratic inertia than lack of technical insight. They started out as a simple online video store, so they designed their site with a "You must rent this movie!" model. When it became obvious that they had to do something really original to survive, they switched to the current business. When they did that, it no longer made sense to use the web site to hype individual movies — but they still do it. Which is why you get recommended a Kung Fu movie just because it was popular among some of the people who liked the Ivory-Marchant movie you also liked. Anybody could design a better recommendation system than that.
So, is this why all my movie recommendations are suddenly 'The Manturian Candiadate' ?
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
I've been selling technology for almost two decades and one thing that I see over and over is that internal IT departments either a.) vastly overestimate their abilities b.) prevent introduction of outside techology providers for political reasons or c.) both. There are several companies where the CIO told me "oh, we're already building that in-house. it will be live next quarter" and years later they still have not successfully implemented that technology. Kudos to Netflix for acknowledging that somebody outside their company might be able to do it better. At most companies, the CIO would have never let this happen and/or the CEO wouldn't have the business sense to challenge internal assumptions.
WXYZConsulting.com registered to a Yi Zhang, eh? Probably co-founded it with Wilfred Xylem. Sounds fishy to me...
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
That's why a fresh perspective on a problem can be quite enlightening, and why I tend to go ask other programmers for their ideas/comments when I get stuck. I don't know everything, and I sometimes make stupid assumptions or forget to consider certain technquies. No group is immune from this.
Bah, every time I ask other programmers for input, their ideas are always stupid, my ideas are much better...
I think I have about 300/500 recommendations that are Agatha Christie movies of one sort or another. Sure, recommend 4 or 5, but I'd like to see OTHER recommendations?!
The RMSE score (lower is better) currently posted by wxyzconsulting.com (0.9430) does indeed beat the CineMatch score (0.9514), which is almost good enough to qualify for the Progress Prize 2007 (0.9419 required), but not close to winning the Grand Prize (0.8563 required), so don't assume that this story means that the contest is over!
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
My first thought on how to go about beating Netflix is to write a program that goes and gets more data. I read their rules, and I don't think this violates them. Mine all the movie review sites (The Onion AVClub, Ebert, etc.) Mine all the commentary for the film on IMDB, Amazon, etc. Mine the ratings by age, gender, etc. for the movie on IMDB. I haven't got time to start going into specifics, but use all this data to help associate what they're going to like.
It can't be done for this contest, but I'd suggest that Netflix should start getting more complete profiles on their users (optional, of course) so that they can start to collect more information about the individuals that liked or disliked each movie. They should be able to break down who liked the movie best by age, gender, region, ethnicity, religion, or whatever. This can give them more fine-grained sorting ability.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
At most companies, the CIO would not let it happen because of the political fall-out that woudl ensue, not because they wouldn't recognize that other people have good ideas as well.
..
The fact that Netflix is allowing customer data out of their control (albiet sanitized data) is a major step that many company's would never take out of reasons not related to the technology at all.
And most CEO's don't challenge those internal assumptions not because of a lack of business sense, but again, because of political savy. The higher you go in a company, the greater the importance of poltiical acumen. It's not even mostly about business. It's mostly about political positioning.
Folks can argue all day long that it SHOULDN'T be about that, but in the real world it is. And frankly, good CEO's and good CIO's need to survive year to year too .
One important thing to keep in mind is how the Progress Prize works. The minimum for it is a 1% improvement over last years best score. However, the prize doesn't just go to the first to reach that 1%. It goes to the best algorithm that contest year that beats 1%. So if someone posts a 1% solution now and then in 11 months another posts a 2%, the 2% solution gets the prize.
Due to this, there's a big incentive NOT to post any results until near the end of the contest year, unless your results qualify you for the grand prize. Even then, there is a 30 day window in which other people (or you) can beat your results.
I'm tired of people not realizing that "Prizes" are really just Patronage in desguise. I'm not saying Patronage is a bad thing... far from it. But the idea that Prizes are somehow working shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone with knowledge of 15th century aristocracy.
Pay the people who do the work, don't get people to work for pay.
Nice of you to put everybody in the same "separatist" category. That's just as true as every American is a bible thumper who loves Bush and is all for the war against terror. There's lots of people of boths kinds, but it hardly represents everyone. It's so easy for you to disregard diversity and history altogether and to label everyone the same - just like all Muslims are definitely evil terrorists. Life must be so easy with such a biased and one-sided view. Also, Montreal is about the last place I'd want to live. You've obviously never been here, you don't know the place or the people, and you're just talking out of your ass.
From everybody in Quebec: Fuck you
At least 2 teams have beaten the Cinematch score. Only one has gone past the Probe point.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
...you might just win yourself a relationship so 'special' that 90% of all couples in America share. You'll buy her jewelry and allow her to spend your money on frivolous trifles, and she in turn will allow you to stick your penis in her vagina. When all else fails, resort to mediocrity!
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
I strongly resent the use of the word pepper to describe Quebecers and their alleged suffering. According to a couple referendums apparently we DON'T want to separate from Canada (it's why were still Canadians). Believe it or not a lot of us are level headed bilingual people. Even though I am from Montreal and love my city, it is not the only place worth mentioning in our province. We also have really awesome hydro-electric dams that provide electricity for a sh*tload of people. And, by the way, you're not the one preventing us from playing your "reigndeer games", we do that to ourselves.
So, I guess you are among the 1 in 3 people that actually has confidence in our leadership? How does it feel to know that 2 out of every 3 people think you are wrong?
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
Ever heard of the Music Genome Project? It's used by a site www.pandora.com to drive a personalized internet radio station. I am extremely impressed at how well it picks new music that appeals to me.
I wonder if a similar project could do the same thing for movies...
Good! Maybe their recommendation system will start being useful. Currently it starts with nothing recommended and the more things you rate the more it recommends! How does this help me? Shouldn't it start by recommending all the movies and as I tell it what I like it narrows the number of recommendations.
I find being offended by me offensive.
It's a pretty clear distinction. This is a prize.
{sticks pinky to mouth edge} Mwah... Mwah hah... Mwah ha ha ha haaaaaa!!!!!!!
They asked me what my Age and Sex are. Guess they already know my Location. Oh crap, POS GTG.
I tip my hats to wxyzconsulting, but I visited their website and it looks Bogus. Could they have been trying to avoid the slashdot effect. They say they are located in Los Gatos, CA. the same area Netflix is located (check Netflix's "job postings" page). Hmmm.... ( i hope they don't give the 1M away to themselves setup by a bogus company...that would do no good) ~= Chris =~
"Where the program goes, the freedom goes with it." -- rms
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Looks like they already gave away the Grand Prize to "The Thought Gang." This just appeared on the site within the last hour.
And I just finished downloading the dataset... jesus.
# Erik
"The Thought Gang" has the highest ranking at this point but it doesn't meet the criteria of being 10% better than CineMatch's results. It looks likes anything better than .9474 goes into the progress category while any result better than .9419 will go into the grand prize category. This article submission is bit disappointing, especially with the title misleading one to believe the contest has been wrong.
Typo: "Won" not "Wrong"
Actually, it's completely ontopic :)
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
True but it works both ways. I've seen plenty of companies harmed by buying in expensive, specialist software that could easily have replaced themselves by leveraging general purpose tools and their own expertese. Speciality software packages are often steaming POS and many business problems are generic e.g. Change management, data entry or archiving.
---
Don't be a programmer-bureaucrat; someone who substitutes marketing buzzwords and software bloat for verifiable improvements.
"the power of prizes to accelerate progress"
In graphic design and advertising, holding contests to develop and choose suitable product is considered spec work. It is recognised as being bad for business, bad for the industries, and is discouraged by professional organisations.
The power of contests lies with one client, who has a lot of people work for nothing so the client can get their finished product on the cheap, with little or no risk to themselves. The client who uses contests is demonstrating a lack of commitment to project development, and everyone else suffers financially, which drags the entire industry down. I don't see how it is any different in developing technology.
RTFM; please, I beg you.