Acting on Amazon Recommendations

Posted by: Alex S. on 07 February 2002

As anyone who shops here and doesn't zap all the cookies will know, they recommend stuff on the basis of what you've bought before.

Usually they advise things I already have, or deeply suspicious offerings, but this time they tried the John Scoffield Band 'Uberjam'. So I took a punt and on the basis of one play I think its excellent.

Has anyone else acted on recommendations and turned up a trump, or a turnip?

Alex

Posted on: 07 February 2002 by Former member

Global Communication, Boards Of Canada, Delerium, Synaesthesia, Intermix, Moe., String Cheese Incident and more.

Touch wood, I haven't bought a clinker yet this way. This is all pretty obvious stuff, but part of the trick is to cross-reference the references against other people's purchases. It could be that only a few people have bought Album X (which you know you like or you have) and then one of the daft buggers has gone off and bought a Nana Mouskouri CD as well (maybe for their granny or stone deaf cousin).

Always check out "See All Customer Reviews", cos it tends to attract gushers who give everything 5 stars. Pay particular attention to the featured reviewers and look at the range of other stuff they've reviewed to see whether thier overall taste matches yours.

The great thing about this forum is that (for me anyway) you've formed such a useful jumping off/reference point.

And if I have any doubts, all I have to do is imagine a post from Tony Lonorgan saying "just buy more krautrock"...

Posted on: 07 February 2002 by Dr. Exotica

quote:
Has anyone else acted on recommendations and turned up a trump, or a turnip?

Alex,

I've generally had very good luck over the years with the Amazon recommendations; most of the recommendations that I've followed are in the area of children's books as well as some music. I haven't gotten a lemon yet. Keep in mind, I don't blindly follow them but instead use them as interesting avenues for further exploration.

Amazon uses some very sophisticated data mining techniques in order to provide these recommendations - I've seen a paper or two a technical computer science conferences detailing (at a rather high level of abstraction) what they are doing. Quite interesting stuff.

One of the interesting things at Amazon related to recommendations is to click on the link to see why they are recommending something in question (more details, etc.).

I say go for it - at least as a good starting place for further investigation and possible purchases.

Erik