Amazon, I’d Like You to Meet Google
by
on June 28, 2008,
Google, this is Amazon. I was wondering if you could show Amazon what an algorithm is and how to properly use one.
You see, Google, I've been an Amazon customer since 1996. I realize that due to my constant changing of ISPs in the late 90s, I lost my first account, but still, you'd think that 10 years of ordering history in this account would give Amazon an idea of what I might want to buy.
Instead, Amazon here is relying on grabbing recommendations that are so obvious my two-year-old could pick out gifts for me. Gee, I've ordered Sandman books? Who could possibly think that I might want to buy MORE Neil Gaiman products? Amazon is unable to figure out that if I've purchased Neil Gaiman maybe there are some similar things outside of his collected works. Here's a suggestion: toss The Watchmen in there, or V for Vendetta. You could probably even put the movie in there for good measure, since it's a movie based on a graphic novel.
Google, Amazon's sole achievement is mining the shopping history of other people for more suggestions. While it's nice to know that other people who bought that same Neil Gaiman novel bought other Neil Gaiman books as well, I think the recommendations should be able to drill down deeper than that.
Oh, and the other thing? Amazon here doesn't know how to properly remove things I purchase as gifts. I made the sad and sorry mistake of buying things for my mother through my account. Webkinz for all the grandchildren. And now my recommendations are full of Webkinz, which I have absolutely no desire to buy again, now or ever. I don't want one single additional stuffed animal to come into this house. Yet in order to get the stuffed animals off my list of recommendations, I have to click a button on each individual suggestion saying that I'm not interested. There isn't even a selection for "ban all items of this type in perpetuity," which I could live with.
Amazon has been around for ages, so it's obvious it must know something about selling things. But if you could please show Amazon that math really isn't that hard, and the shopping experience should change with the times, it would be great. I'll leave you two to chat.
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major
raj
CopyrightLawSucks 
kwarren84 
Michael Fidler 
Jaime A. Restrepo 
Yolanda
Hello
It is so sad that you don’t understand personalization or concepts of web. And that you really dont understand anything about recommendations and worlwide acceptance. You are as shallow as a user can get. And am sure NO user will compare Google and Amazon recommendations. Not even Google will be appreciate of your post as you just dont realize what you want. But Internet is a open space and hence you can keep writing whatever you want.
Cyndy, meet people with common sense.
Amazon share holder,
Explain, please, why my recommendations from Amazon are no better or more insightful in 2008 than they were in 1998? Data mining and recommender systems have come a long way in the last 10 years…. everywhere except Amazon, apparently.
Don’t be a douche. You’re wrong, and you’re letting your biases do your thinking for you.
I am not a shareholder. I am just a tech observer and am a fan of technologies and content management advances that happen through the world. The relevant recommendations or advt that are surfaced by amazon are largely dependent on shopping habits of people. Providing complete personalized recommendations is a evolution in progress and there will be a time, not too far from the future when it is bound to happen. There is no escaping that. Similarly, the relevant ads that is surfaced by google are also far from personalization.. it doesnt happen that you search for shoes and google shows socks options and stops showing that by itself because you did the search for your friend and not for yourself..
I just know you wont get convinced, but I strongly suggest you to dive deep in before you pit Google against Amz in this technology..
Amz, that’s completely BS. Amazon has more purchasing data than probably any other retailer online, and yet their recommendation engine is no better now than it was 10 years ago. I’m not asking for complete personalization; I’m asking for something that doesn’t look like some script kiddie built it over a weekend. There is absolutely no reason why I can’t block a whole section of items from a recommendation link, and no reason why they can’t come up with something more relevant than “by the same author.” In order to continue to compete, companies have to continue to innovate. Just ask Yahoo. Or Microsoft.