Recommendations to Customers via Algorithm

the way Amazon does it

[tedster]

A friend showed me this article about how the Recommendation Algorithms work at Amazon, complete with a rough idea of demands on the computing system. Interesting, if a bit technical, reading.

[dsonline.computer.org...]

[korkus2000]

Interesting article. I always wondered what went in to it. Thanks tedster. I made a comment to my wife the other day that amazon had pretty much nailed my interests. It showed cds I had just bought at the store.

[amoore]

Amazon's recommendation system has always impressed me. It pitches the right things to me very often, and they say that it has improved their sales per visitor tremendously. If I had an online catalog or sold anything on my site, I would be mining my data, too.

What I don't understand is why they don't make a affiliate link that uses this stuff. I wonder if I would get good click-through rates if I had an amazon ad on my site using their recommended items. I know that I get much better returns on single items that I do on generic ads for amazon. Instead of me trying to pitch the right items to my users, it seems that it would be good for both of us if I let amazon pitch the right product.

I know it's possible. The get the user cookie when they pull the javascript from amazon. They demonstrate this ability when they personalize their donation links with my name.

Now, I admit that in my niche sites that I know a good deal about my customers and know what subject they're thinking about right now, so I can pitch some good, targetted items. It does seem, though, that in some instances the best item to pitch would be the one that Amazon calculates.

Perhaps it's that they feel that once I send them a user they can use their recommendations to upsell the customer, so it would be unnecessary to give me that edge. Surely, though, it would be worth a try.

Well, Amazon, how about it?