The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

Re:The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem by avar on Wednesday July 12, 2017 @02:23PM (#14755113)

This is because they're not trying to give you stuff you'd generally like given your entire history. The recommendation feature powers the part of YouTube that auto-plays the upcoming video.

So e.g. if I go and view Russian dashcam videos they're going to automatically play more of them, even though I've shown no prior interest in that topic.

Having two systems for recommendations would introduce a lot of UI complexity, so I can see why they didn't go for that, and why the recommendations are consequently tuned for people who are actively watching videos on some topic right now.

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Re:The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem by icebraining on Wednesday July 12, 2017 @03:24PM (#14755747)

Having two systems for recommendations would introduce a lot of UI complexity,

Do you mean, in terms of implementation or for the user? Because as the later, I think the two are already conceptually different (homepage vs next video), so I don't see how just feeding it different videos would make it more complex.

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Re:The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem by avar on Wednesday July 12, 2017 @05:10PM (#14756707)

For the user. What you're describing is still going to cause complex UX.

So let's say I'm interested in exactly two things. Russian dash cam videos and videos of trains without narration.

I go to the homepage and click on one type of video, what should the next video be? A random video from the two categories? One or the other? Should it show me a banner at the top indicating what recommendation mode I'm in (historical preference or "similar to current video").

Now I go and do the same on my Android YouTube app which has no real UI equivalent of a homepage, what happens then?

This is a lot of UX complexity for a feature few probably care about.

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Re:The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem by icebraining on Wednesday July 12, 2017 @05:42PM (#14756961)

Like I said, I think the homepage is already quite different from the next video in the user's perspective, so there's no need to show banners or anything like that. Homepage = full profile analysis, next video = similar to current.

By the way, the Android app does absolutely have an UI equivalent of a homepage, it's even called "Home".

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Re:The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem by avar on Wednesday July 12, 2017 @06:45PM (#14757331)

I mean once the user selects a video you need to continue showing them context, because at this point they may not remember what mode they're in to begin with.

Making your app behave differently because you navigated to the current state via different menus is very bad UX design. That's all I'm saying. Your suggestion would entail either UX complexity or such implicitly different behavior for YouTube.

Yes Android has a "Home" button. But what I meant by no real UX equivalent is that when you open youtube on the web you'll open a new tab and go to youtube.com.

When you do so an Android you've likely just dismissed the app in the past, and opening it again will bring you back to the last video you were viewing. You don't go through the homepage by default.

Thus it's more of just another menu item on Android, not something that's equivalent to / on a website.

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Re:The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem by idyllei on Wednesday July 12, 2017 @02:31PM (#14755188)

I imagine it would be possible (though difficult) to autoplay videos which are related to each other and gradually converge to something that would interest the viewer.

For example, Russian dash cams to Russia at night to the Russian sleep experiment creepypasta, to horror games to video games in general, if that is what the user tends to watch.

I know this has graph theory written all over it and the shortest-distance problem has wreaked havoc for centuries, but I think with enough resources Google/YouTube could find a good compromise in this situation.

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