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I had no idea what the guys at the office were up to when they camped out in the conference room one evening with their video gear. I figured it was just one of those things you just shouldn’t ask any questions about, and quietly move on. Well, here’s what they were doing: … and I have to admit I think their take on collaborative filtering is pretty funny. I just finished reading a book I really enjoyed, and have been recommending it to various folks. This got me thinking about the elements that prompt me to recommend it, considering how they generalize across other narrative fiction (as opposed to biographies, histories, etc.) I’d recommend.
I came up with the following criterion I tend to use when considering whether or not to suggest a book as a good fit:
So, in the case of “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell“, I’d say it’s got an incredibly original plot, with a well-defined universe of discourse, and very believable characters. Further, the writing style and presentation were enjoyably original (as an homage to 19th century contemporary monographs). Finally, I felt perfectly satisfied with the resolution after investing 845 pages in the story (which, sadly, I can’t say for “Cryptonomicon”, one of my favorite, and most recommended books). Thus, in my mind, I’d put this in the “Highly Recommended” category. There are only a few books like this I’d recommend to everyone I know. I generally try to match the recommendation to people I think would appreciate it. The trick, of course, is to identify the right match… Other Books I Recommend: I’ve always known that I live in a little bubble of people who think largely like I do. It seems perfectly natural to me that we hang out with people who share some sort of common interest. Even if the majority of your acquaintances are formed by proximity, there’s a high probability that everyone working together or otherwise living in the same neighborhood have some sort of connection. What I bumped into during my recent holiday vacation, however, was an entirely different group of people than I usually encounter. While visiting my family in Colorado, I attended a few parties with folks I wouldn’t necessarily consider my posse. But when hanging out with the family, on their turf, you go with the flow. Everyone’s always been interested in my work for the Patriots, and I’ve got a ton of amusing stories about the ten or so years I was working for them. Generally, there’s not a lot of explaining that has to take place prior to an anecdote; almost everyone knows what a football team is and what they do. This year, however, was very different. When asked what I’m doing now, I would start with the standard matchmine elevator pitch. Over the past couple years that pitch has taken less and less further explanation. It’s hard to walk down the street in Boston today and not bump into a couple dozen companies grappling with the need to personalize their offering. Even outside involvement in the biz, most folks with whom I interact take the elevator pitch and easily start pushing their own question buttons. Back home, however, I was surrounded by a shockingly large number of people who had only a vague notion of personalized media discovery. In fact, they assumed that the type of work we’re doing already exists under the covers of the sites they visit. Given my familial connections, there was a wide range of people spanning cowboys, doctors, judges, artists, and professional philanthropists. While not necessarily a mark of intelligence, the majority of them, while were working all over the map, had advanced degrees of one sort or another. Further, most of them talked easily about using email, the web, and tools like SMS, IM, and RSS feed readers in their daily lives (and not in a “gee whiz” sort of way, but as a matter-of-fact). What I’m saying is that these are regular people who are relatively plugged in. While they’re not involved in building the online stuff, they’re actively using it. They’re moderately heavy computer users, tossing photos around with the likes of Flickr and regularly using iChat, etc., so I didn’t detect a learning curve required there. Further, everyone assumed that many sites performs some under-the-covers magic for their “You’re interest in this, so you might like that” features. It’s just that they didn’t realize these systems are all disconnected from each other. Almost to a person, I finally got them on board when I said something to the effect that, “Using a MatchKey, you won’t have to do anything other than what you do now. Through our partners you’ll simply see an improvement in what they’re already offering you.” They were sold on the concept, then, when they got the fact that the MatchKey can be used as their proxy for their interests and tastes on various sites. It’s just that they don’t think about stuff like this much. It was while ruminating on these discussions that I realized how important it is to remain focused on customer need as opposed to kewl tech. To that end, I have a renewed appreciation for the mantra of “don’t change the habits of the consumer, just improve their experience.” It’s easy to forget this reality when living in a bubble where everyone speaks the same lingo. This is just too good to pass up… Seamus McCauley posted a complimentary note on his “Virtual Economics” blog today:
I’m certainly pleased to hear that the idea I cooked up strikes a chord. I’ve been living this dream for the past couple years, and it’s gratifying that there’s a receptive audience for it. We’re still in the (very) early hours of the execution of the business itself, so I’m excited to see us transition from the “great idea” phase into providing a “great solution” for the end users. … and so it begins. In his Data Mining blog, Mathew Hurst posted a simple and elegant Gedanken exercise of traffic drivers to specific content from various sites. Based on the readership and interests of their audiences, he points out some clear ideas related to the differences between “popularity” and “authority”.
Clear and concise. Now the trick is to capitalize on this concept. Those of you following the story of my new business venture, matchmine, know that there’s a part of it that came from discussions my brother and I had back in ‘95. Specifically, we were talking about the implications of music jumping off their prison of plastic discs and being more freely distributed online as bits and bytes. We knew the paradigm shift was coming, and we worked out some concepts for what that’d mean to end users. Around that time Mark was working on an open source project with some MIT alum to build a digital jukebox. Keep in mind, though, that this was before “MP3″ was a household term (I even remember some debate raging as to which format it’d support). Using some nifty AI tricks, the jukebox was able to cleverly serve up a good mix of tracks that’d largely hit the interests of the folks connected to it. Amusingly, this whole project was primarily driven by the desire to help his staff listen to their collective tunes. That was then, and this is now. And now I just fielded a call from him with another clever idea, this time including the artists in the mix. The basic concept is rooted in the fact that the music industry as it has been for the past fifty years will have to change to remain relevant. There’s a lot of debate about the actual form the new model will eventually take, but the dust isn’t close to settling on the right solution just yet. In fact, unlike the monolithic solutions of the past, it’s distinctly possible that multiple models can simultaneously exist. To that end, the idea du jour is how to take the digital jukebox concept and pay the artists directly when people listen. As it stands now, for any one artist there are all sorts of contracts with multiple parties (eg. producers, labels, distributors, etc.) the majority of which are governed by the RIAA. It’s obvious why that has historically proven to be “the way of it”, but the rules of the game have changed significantly enough in recent years that it’s worth evaluating new opportunities. With this recent conversation rattling in my head, I stumbled onto a post by Jason Kolb that sketches a basic concept speaking to the plan Mark and I discussed:
Formalizing the idea, then, and without further adieu here’s basically what Mark suggested — to build a tool that an end user can:
This could be in the form of a web site… though I’d suggest a simple web service that other websites and applications could use. To do so, some light-weight API would do the trick. There are already too many end user destinations as it is; why add to the noise? This approach would also allow existing (or new) destinations to generate some revenue of their own with a piece of advertising, etc. All very well-and-good, but how’s the music gonna’ get in there to be fed back out? The answer is that the music catalog only contains tracks released under a generally compatible open license (eg. Creative Commons). A lot of which can already be obtained online under various licenses, but these specific artists never expected to see a dime off of these tracks. To encourage wider support, though, they’d need something more than nothing for their work. To service them, another tool set would need to be rolled out for the artists:
These tools would probably need to be coupled with similar ones geared toward downstream revenue generators. It’d be reasonable to assume something like what Kolb mentions could be the simple first step (ie. referral service to direct purchase). Following that, additional services can be added to the portal and associated APIs over time as it builds momentum. Anyway, there’s a brief sketch of the new thought. Given the accelerating pace, I’m guessing it won’t be long to see something like it come to fruition. In fact… at matchmine we’re already building [CENSORED BY MATCHMINE DEPARTMENT OF SECRECY] and we’re really excited about it! |
 
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May 23rd, 2008 | 
Spawning a Sixth Sense
Over the weekend I was chatting with some folks totally outside the web tech gravity well. While explaining more about what we do at matchmine, it was interesting to see how they approached the concept of media recommendations. Initially, they didn’t see much differentiation between various techniques, but through some examples started to see some of the nuances.
Here are some example recommendation sets that helped get them to mental escape velocity:
In case it’s not obvious, the sets were spawned from the film The Sixth Sense, each exploring various aspects of it. For example, the first set dives deeper into the “supernatural thriller” subgenre. The films in the second set are examples of “turnaround” films (i.e. surprise endings). And the third set spreads the gamut, each touching a “key element” related to The Sixth Sense (e.g. same director or cast, similar plot structure, same genre, etc.).
In the end, sets like this help illustrate the variety of similarity types available. The set that makes sense within a specific context, and is most valuable to a particular user, is what we are doing at matchmine. While this was only a Gedanken exercise, it was useful when explaining aspects of our value proposition.