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The Stuff You Don't Even Know You Want To Buy Yet
- by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, November 13, 2009
When I go to Amazon.com -- oh, about five times a week (yes, I am that addicted) -- the site's famously effective recommendation engine has ample opportunity to monitor my browsing habits. The
result is a personalized experience that is almost eerie in its ability to anticipate the items I …
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Steve Smith is Editorial Director of Events for MediaPost
VERY cool stuff, and a well written piece about it. Bravo!
Great article Mr. Smith!
There are quite a few websites that crowd source. Off the top of my head I know Netflix uses a form of it. And I know Amazon does too. Some music sites. Normally key words "people who bought/liked this...tend to also bought/liked this". And it really is invaluable. In fact if I was the Apple App Store I would be using crowd sourcing (I don't have an I Phone so no idea if they do). When catalogs and offerings get to a certain critical mass of confusion online how else can product be showcased. brick and mortar is easy since we all walk through stores and stumble upon stuff we had no idea we needed. But there is no visual like that for the web.
I like the piece! I agree completely about Amazon. I go there WAY too much and end up buying books that I had never heard of but now HAVE TO HAVE. They are good. I like the predictive value of crowd sourcing. It is interesting to see the washing machines go from something interacted with to something actually purchased. Well done.
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