The Week in Geek – Nov. 24, 2008
If You Liked This, You’re Sure to Love That
It’s been over two years since Netflix offered $1 million to the first geeks that could improve its Cinematch recommendation engine by 10%. Many are close to claiming the crowdsourced Netflix Prize, but none of the 30,000 teams has pushed past the 10% hurdle. Turns out you can blame Napoleon Dynamite. That film, and a handful of other quirky, polarizing, mostly independent offerings elicit ratings that are unpredictably binary. Also in the ‘you love it or hate it’ camp: I Heart Huckabees, Lost in Translation, The Life Aquatic, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, and Sideways. And while the Netflix prize has attracted a wildly diverse group of code-jockeys: Bell Labs researchers, Hungarian Professors, the guys from Princeton who started as undergrads, and numerous ‘dads in a garage’, Napoleon has flummoxed them all – one claims the flick is responsible for 15% of the gap between him and the $1 million (Curiously, nearly all the teams are made up of dudes, despite the fact that one of the first Internet-based collaborative filtering pioneers is the Queen of the MIT Media Lab, Patti Maes, who founded Firefly and sold it to Microsoft years back). Prediction features are key to Netflix & other sites where consumption offers long-tail choice. Turns out when consumers are offered too much choice, they often choose nothing. Cinematch is hugely important for Netflix – as mentioned in the Netflix Case, it’s responsible for about 60% of recommendations.
Amid the Gloom, an E-Commerce War
The BusinessWeek cover story (left) ran nearly a decade ago, but the battle rages on and increasingly tilts in Amazon’s favor.Three years ago eBay had 30% more traffic than Amazon. Today they’re nearly even at over 80 million active users. And while eBay’s stock has faltered and growth is relatively flat, Amazon’s market cap has zoomed past the Palace that Pez built. What’s happening? Sellers of more commoditized, fixed-price goods are migrating to Amazon, where third party vendors now account for 29% of sales. eBay will always be the first-choice destination for unique, highly differentiated products. The price-setting mechanism of auctions will always be valued for collectables. But auctions actually get in the way when you want to buy regular stuff – books, toys, clothes. The NY Times also points out that these firms’ attitude toward innovation is influenced by compensation structure. Amazon execs get performance-based stock grants resulting from annual evaluations. But for years eBay gave cash and stock bonuses based on quarterly performances. The street regularly punished Amazon, largely because they didn’t get where the firm was headed. But the risk-taking, longer-term view that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pushes throughout the firm’s culture has led to a number of well regarded initiatives and despite aggressive spending and hiring, steady, predictable growth.
How Google Has Ears
iPhone users with the free Google app installed got a killer update this week. Google on iPhone now understands spoken search entries! Just hold the iPhone up to your head & the device’s sensors can tell you’re about to speak. Google has been able to hone speech recognition based on years of experience with its free GOOG-411 phone directory service (Have you tried it? Dial 1-800-466-4411 ‘800-GOOG-411’ from any phone). Worked great for me, but apparently Google has a hard time understanding the British.
TiVo, Domino’s team up to make us all fat | Digital Media
The super-smart innovators in Alviso are at it again, TiVo now serves up the ultimate in couch-potato on-demand ordering. When a Domino’s pizza ad appears onscreen, TiVo users will be able to use their remote controls to call up a menu and place an order (you still have to pay cash when the delivery shows up at your doorstep). TiVo has several other remote-control-based ordering deals, including with Fandango (movie tickets) and Amazon (video) – and the device is becoming a real channel of commerce. TechTrekkers had a wonderful time with the TiVo folks last March, and look forward to visiting again in ‘09. Click image at left for screenshots of the interface.
Eat and Tell
Ever seen someone taking a photo of their meal with their phone? If you Yelp, you know why. With over 4 million reviews and 15 million visits a month, the site has blasted past Zagats and Citysearch to become the web’s most popular review site, and new iPhone apps make Yelping, and Yelp referencing, faster and more convenient than ever. Yelpers leave cards (‘you’ve just been yelped’), and the most highly regarded Yelpers (tagged as ‘Elite’) are often courted to attend special events hosted by restaurants and wines that covet their input. Good R&D, but risky if folks suspect you’ve got a ‘sock puppet’ shilling for their supper. And this is no longer just about restaurants. Now Yelpers review everything from real estate agents to religious institutions to physicians. One NYC Yelper claims post-op pics of her plastic surgery helped generate a thousand referrals for her doc.
The Doctor Will See You Now – Online
Why not take a house call through your laptop? That’s the idea from American Well. Starting in January, patients of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Hawaii, will be able to have 10 minute online appointments, including a co-pay, just like in a doctor’s office. Meetings can be extended for a fee, and docs can file prescriptions through the system. Uninsured will have access too, at far less than Emergency Room rates. Docs are compensated less than an office visit, but more than a phone consult (which most don’t get paid for, anyway). American Well handles scheduling, insurance, even payments sent directly to the doc’s bank account.
Pain and delight: Who’s firing, who’s hiring
Jobseekers may want to check out this set of spreadsheets from CNet, showing where the jobs are (and aren’t).
Geeks of the world rejoice, there is now a YouTube Monty Python Channel.
Facebook’s View of the World
Engineers working at the Facebook Hackathon have created a remarkable visualization video showing a sort of global mapping of real-time usage of the site. See the social-graph form. Students who have travelled with me to the Googleplex have seen a similar demo that runs just off of Google’s main lobby. For more details.