Netflix Progress Prize Awarded

Re:Netflix Progress Prize Awarded by zack on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @07:02PM (#393669)

It's working great. In fact, I'd say it's fucking awesome. The recommendation algorithm has improved greatly, and contributions to the science of statistics have been made because of this corporation.

Your comment strikes me as obnoxious. You try to gibe NetFlix, but the truth of the matter is that there is a market. The considerable prize sum is enough to interest a competent individual.

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Re:Netflix Progress Prize Awarded by jderick on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @08:15PM (#393750)

You have to remember that many of these researchers are funded by government money (eg, university researchers) or shareholders (eg, corporate labs) that may not be seeing any return on their investment. In some sense, Netflix is stealing cycles that may have been put to better use elsewhere. This could be seen somewhat akin to bribing a public official, only in a 'steal one penny from a million officials' kind of way.

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Re:Netflix Progress Prize Awarded by kleneway on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @09:10PM (#393824)

In addition, just think of the massive amounts of cash these researchers are stealing from the network TV execs and advertising agencies, since they may be working on this in their spare time in the evenings instead of watching TV. Despicable.

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Re:Netflix Progress Prize Awarded by jderick on Thursday December 11, 2008 @01:39PM (#394600)

Funny, but obviously my comment doesn't apply to anyone's spare time.

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Re:Netflix Progress Prize Awarded by jmtame on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @07:29PM (#393703)

Sorry, you'll have to excuse that I'm not immediately a huge fan of corporations who give small amounts of money for significant amounts of research that ultimately go back to benefit the corporation.

Apparently, they're going to give all of the code out, which is good to hear. I'm proud of the machine learning community for that. As for Netflix, it's difficult for me to believe this is really about research and not about increasing their profitability.

I could be way off. Maybe $1 million over the course of 2+ years is a heck of a lot of money for a team of developers (selected from 35,000 teams), which will be used to generate more profit for NetFlix. Who knows. I'm glad that so far over 2 years, $100k was given out. That's good to see.

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Re:Netflix Progress Prize Awarded by byrneseyeview on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @08:16PM (#393755)

As for Netflix, it's difficult for me to believe this is really about research and not about increasing their profitability.

Are you really more concerned with the purity of their motives that the results of their actions? I would rather interact with people who can accomplish stuff for selfish reasons than people who fail hard but feel good for trying.

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Re:Netflix Progress Prize Awarded by jmtame on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @08:55PM (#393799)

I'm not concerned, I just said it's great that after 2 years of work, we've seen $100k come from it. That is wonderful news.

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Re:Netflix Progress Prize Awarded by plinkplonk on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @10:13PM (#393887)

Why is this downmodded? I can understand people disagreeing, but it is a well articulated point.

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Re:Netflix Progress Prize Awarded by unalone on Thursday December 11, 2008 @10:51AM (#394372)

I downvoted after reading the first sentence.

Sorry, you'll have to excuse that I'm not immediately a huge fan of corporations who give small amounts of money for significant amounts of research that ultimately go back to benefit the corporation.

While the statement that followed was at least reasonable, that line struck me as really obnoxious.

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Re:Netflix Progress Prize Awarded by zack on Wednesday December 10, 2008 @10:51PM (#393917)

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

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