Comments
Michelle
10/5/2017 11:09:30 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: A hero ain't nothing but a permutation ....
Agree 1000%! Have you used Hulu's Roku app yet? It's one of the worst around. Discovery is a clear focus but at all other costs. It's poorly done.
afwriter
10/5/2017 11:09:49 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: A hero ain't nothing but a permutation ....
I think the boom in original content is actually making that harder too because not only are their so many more options, many which are for niche audiences, but we don't get time in between shows to discover anything new. It's just "here's ten more originals for you to binge."
Michelle
10/5/2017 11:12:04 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Copy and Paste
Don't forget the backend technology that politely buffers content in the background. I think Netflix has done well for lower bandwidth situations. They've done what the other two cannot.
JohnBarnes
10/7/2017 4:15:43 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: A hero ain't nothing but a permutation ....
Discovery is an interesting problem in AI attempts to model preferences. We know people generally like the same things for a while and then satiate, and when you're talking about whole populations, even the satiation rate is fairly predictable.
Most discovery relating to taste is of things that are "the same only different," and there are not yet clear ways for the machine to discover and predict either "how different is just different enough?" or to identify what has to stay the same and what has to differ.
Nonetheless I think it's a soluble problem. The thing is, the information needed to solve it is probably not in Netflix or Amazon's datasets; it's probably in other companies' datasets. There's room here for some highly effective customer aggregator to break into (and maybe even take over) this market.
mhhf1ve
10/7/2017 6:00:03 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: A hero ain't nothing but a permutation ....
I think we'll find that discovery isn't really the problem we think it is. Netflix has already figured this out after its million dollar challenge to improve recommendations. Netflix didn't end up using the algorithms because the more profitable business is not in better recommendations-- but in pushing viewers to more cost effective content (sneakily).
JohnBarnes
10/7/2017 7:08:46 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: A hero ain't nothing but a permutation ....
mhhf1ve,
True for some cases (emphatically including Netflix) -- but in other cases there's also attrition to worry about, and discovery is one of the ways to beat attrition. (To some point; on the third hand (the prehensile tail?) there are fields like pop music where attrition is absolutely built into it, and better discovery for younger people only leads to older people finding out they're out of touch faster).
mhhf1ve
10/8/2017 12:42:08 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: A hero ain't nothing but a permutation ....
Certainly. Not every streaming content service is the same. Netflix has its own business model that favors recommending titles that they own and content they have favorably negotiated deals to offer to subscribers. Redbox and other "blockbuster" delivery networks have similar incentives. It's only certain content aggregators (Amazon?) that have large libraries of content that aren't well known that do well with discovery algorithms that point people to obscure titles.
JohnBarnes
10/8/2017 1:09:31 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: A hero ain't nothing but a permutation ....
Yes, Amazon is the almost-polar case I'm thinking of. Google/YouTube could easily move into that space as well if they have a mind to.
And the part of my brain that is never far from the possible frontiers in data science/big data/forecasting has begun to think "in principle ... why couldn't an algoorithm forecast when a person was about to get bored with a narrow repeated niche and start to want something new?" Then the same service could keep both the happy rut-sitters and the jaded rut-jumpers on board, seamlessly.
mhhf1ve
10/8/2017 2:05:29 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: A hero ain't nothing but a permutation ....
YouTube is definitely a content delivery service that benefits from strong discovery algorithms. The nature of its "long tail" content makes it perfect for discovery algorithms to do well. But even then, humans aren't so complex -- and I'd guess fairly simple algorithms would do pretty well without resorting to exotic deep learning. Merely suggesting content that other people have watched multiple times is enough to be a decent algorithm for discovery. I do wonder occasionally if any YouTube algorithms have ever "started" a viral hit? If YouTube could "manufacture" viral videos -- that would be an interesting achievement.
mhhf1ve
10/8/2017 2:09:47 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Copy and Paste
Netflix might stumble, but it has a pretty big lead now. It would be difficult for a startup to get the same distribution network and quality content pipeline going. Perhaps a hybrid pirate-legal content service could skip to obtaining a large enough library of quality content. But the demise of Aereo suggests that an approach like that would be killed by the court system.
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