Super Crunchers
Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart
Chapter One
Who's Doing Your Thinking for You?
Recommendations make life a lot easier. Want to know what movie to rent? The traditional way was to ask a friend or to see whether reviewers gave it a thumbs-up.
Nowadays people are looking for Internet guidance drawn from the behavior of the masses. Some of these "preference engines" are simple lists of what's most popular. The New York Times lists the "most emailed articles." iTunes lists the top downloaded songs. Del.icio.us lists the most popular Internet bookmarks. These simple filters often let surfers zero in on the greatest hits.
Some recommendation software goes a step further and tries to tell you what people like you enjoyed. Amazon tells you that people who bought The Da Vinci Code also bought Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Netflix gives you recommendations that are contingent on the movies that you yourself have recommended in the past. This is truly "collaborative filtering," because your ratings of movies help Netflix make better recommendations to others and their rati ...
read full excerpt from: Super Crunchers ebook
