Which Movie Should I Watch?

“We know that if you ask people what movie they want to see next week, they’re likely to mention a classy art film. But, if you ask them what movie they want to see tonight, they’re more likely to mention a mindless blockbuster.”
-         David Brooks

Netflix isn't that big a name in India, but it's huge in the US. The company was founded by Reed Hastings in 1997 who “saw a way to combine Americans' love of movies with their love of not getting off the sofa even to go to the video store”! So how did they do it? Remember this was way back in 1997, with the Internet just starting to catch on. So the company mailed DVD's to customers; who after viewing it, would mail the DVD back. Today, of course, with increased network speeds, the company streams movies (the way YouTube does) to your PC/laptop/phone/tablet.

Netflix is famous for its recommendation algorithms that suggest what you might want to view next. So much so that Xavier Amatriain, Netflix's engineering director, said in a recent interview:
“Almost everything we do is a recommendation. I was at eBay last week, and they told me that 90 percent of what people buy there comes from search. We’re the opposite. Recommendation is huge, and our search feature is what people do when we’re not able to show them what to watch.”
Forget not-getting-off-the-couch-laziness, looks like nowadays people don't even want to think about what they want to watch! Wow!

Remember all those reader comments you see on Amazon? You’d think movie watchers would do the same on Netflix. But no. As Amatriain said:
“With instant streaming, you start playing something, you don’t like it, you just switch. Users don’t really perceive the benefit of giving explicit feedback, so they invest less effort.”
Lesser feedback obviously makes it harder to get the recommendation algorithms right. Also, what the same guys watches varies:
“We have data that suggests there is different viewing behavior depending on the day of the week, the time of day, the device, and sometimes even the location.”
Which is why Carlos Gomez-Uribe, VP of product innovation says:
“People rate movies like Schindler’s List high, as opposed to one of the silly comedies I watch, like Hot Tub Time Machine. If you give users recommendations that are all four- or five-star videos, that doesn’t mean they’ll actually want to watch that video on a Wednesday night after a long day at work.”

Sound about right, doesn’t it? Which is what Netflix’s recommendations all the more impressive.

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