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."

Shows the power of Greed

[sinner6]

This shows that greed can be used in a positive way.

That is all I have to say, anyone else have anything to add?

whats the prize?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Sometimes one person with a different perspective

[Richard Steiner]

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.

Re:Interesting business name...

[wampus]

Maybe he is the YZ in WXYZ.

Re:I'll do you one better.

[Hacksaw]

Actually, I find that friends have a less than 60% chance of making a recomendation that I'll like. People like vastly different things, and for different reasons.

However, recommendations from multiple friends raises the accuracy to close to 100%.

Re:Upon further consideration...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm offering $1000 USD to the person or group that can find me the perfect girlfriend!

Nymphomaniac Supermodel with no vocal chords?

Re:Shows the power of Greed

[Sangui5]

then one can extend it to a variety of areas which might be more useful than movie recomendations

I'd say, the odds are that this is going the other way. They had an existing technique, and then they extended it to movie recomendations. You don't need to offer researchers in data mining a price to get them to advance the state of the art in data mining; that's what they're interested in, and what they're payed for anyway. The prize just got them to apply it to movie recomendations.

The only thing to see here is that Netflix hadn't kept up to date on the latest and greatest in the academic literature. Otherwise, just move along.

Just another proof that IT depts aren't that smart

[haggie]

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.

Re:Upon further consideration...

[steveo777]

Comb your hair, permanently delete all your porn and all those DVDs of backups, comb your hair and shave the beard. Buy some new, clean, clothes without words or logos. Ask out pretty girls. Avoid the use of the words woot, pwnd, and 'leet' in any casual conversation. Do not admit to your unhealthy infatuation of a sci-fi or fantasy series of books or movies.

It's not called Prizes. It's Patronage.

[neo]

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.

Re:Upon further consideration...

[heinousjay]

So your advice is to be somebody else entirely in an attempt to please someone? That's the foundation of a healthy relationship if I ever saw one.

If you follow his advice...

[itistoday]

...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!

Re:Upon further consideration...

[toad3k]

When I have a computer problem, I try one thing, then if that doesn't work I try another.

When I have a social problem, I try one thing. And then I keep trying it and trying it, and when people tell me to try something else I keep trying the same thing anyways. Because that's how it works in the movies.