A nice article over at Read/Write Web about recommendation engines. They break down current systems into 4 categories:
- Personalized recommendation – recommend things based on the individual’s past behavior
- Social recommendation – recommend things based on the past behavior of similar users
- Item recommendation – recommend things based on the thing itself
- A combination of the three approaches above
I take issue with the label “Social recommendation” because that’s not what social is. Social means being part of a society, being connected.
When Amazon tells you that 63% of people who bought product X also bought product Y, there is nothing social involved. This is math.
What I want to see is a recommendation system that takes advantage of the fact that true social information is now available in the form of social networks. Don’t tell me what 63% of other shoppers bought, tell me what my friends and experts bought.