30% of Netflix's 500 Engineers Work on Personalization Technology

A few days ago I asked readers about the quality of Netflix's recommendations, and 68% responded that Netflix recommended good movies at least some of the time. SmartPlanet interviewed John Ciancutti, Netflix's vp of personalization technology, and he told them that about 30% of Netflix's 500 engineers work on personalization technology. Ciancutti also shed some light on how Netflix recommends movies:

What, specifically, have you learned about how to make personalization better?

Most of our customers rate movies on our website and on television-connected devices. We’ve worked very hard to try to understand how best to use those explicit taste ratings in order to improve the experience we offer. We have three billion movie ratings. Those ratings don’t just help the customers that give us those ratings. They help us understand movie ratings generally and in that way can help all 14 million members. We’ve learned over the last few years how we can use implicit data that our customers give us, as well. By implicit data, I mean how are the ways they use our service? What movies do they choose to stream? What movies do they choose to ship on DVD? What movies do they add on their DVD or streaming queues? What does that data tell us about their taste? How can we leverage that data to give them a better experience than we did before? 

Comments

[Sock Puppet]

...68% responded that Netflix recommended good movies at least some of the time.

And the other 32% either confused "Recommended Movies" with "This is recommended because you like" or because they stubbornly refuse to open themselves up to new experiences in genres.

I never watched foreign or classic noir films till I joined Netflix... Now I absolutely LOVE them...

[RowdyReptile]

One super easy recommendation to make their ratings more accurate would be to allow ratings in half-star increments (like Blockbuster.com does).

[Joel]

And you though big brother was scary.....

[Patrick]

If they are so concerned about it? Why don't they let you enter what movies you own at home? It would be a handy reference for customers and help their ratings!
Amazon does it!

[Shawn]

I personally don't care what Netflix recommends, even though I have rated over 1000 films it's right only about 30% of the time.

I search by actors and get their entire filmography.

[Ali Imran Zaidi]

Since it's relevant I thought I'd share... This short webisode in our comedy web series sums up the ongoing Netflix recommendations / personalization battle: http://www.oneminutepeople.com/episodes/9-netfix/

[MiniMonkey]

Huh... 150 engineers working on personalization technology? You know what made my Netflix experience personal?... Seeing my friends' ratings. You know what gave me the absolute best and most accurate movie recommendations on Netflix?... My friends' ratings.

Too bad Netflix doesn't find it worth it to put just one engineer on maintaining this minor feature (from a technical standpoint) that is a MAJOR feature contributing to the once outstanding personalization, but now completely lacking, of the Netflix experience.

... Yes, I'm bitter. Still.

[Lies, damned lies and statistics]

John Ciancutti only talks about half of the attributes of personalization. The other half is how to maximize profits for Netflix and how Netflix treats new customers much better than the loyal customers who have been with Netflix for years.

Rather disingenuous and self serving interview.

"Even kids know it's wrong to treat new friends better than old friends!"

[d]

how about fixing the streaming first! I've gotten error msgs most of this wkend! It tells me i've reached my limit of 6 devices??!! WTF, i only get 3 & only stream on one comp at a time!!!! Any one else having this issue??

[M. King]

I agree that bringing back the Friends features, so that one could see how friends rated films and could easily send and receive movie notes from Friends, would be vastly more helpful than putting 500 engineers to work on tweaking the recommendation algorithms. Most Netflix recommendations for me--based on my nearly 5000 film ratings--are either off the mark or superfluous (by referring to films I'm already aware of but just haven't gotten around to seeing or rating yet). By contrast, Friends--real people not paid a penny by Netflix--did an excellent job of bringing movies and genres to my attention that I would otherwise have missed (and that Netflix's recommendation algorithms don't pick up).

[Glenn]

I don't understand why I should have to tell them what my "tastes" are. They should already know if I like Westerns or not based on my existing movie ratings.

[Ian Smith]

netflix movies for instant viewing have far fewer selections and the quality of the movies via PS3 are not very good! Today I was unable to even connect to netflix via my computer. I am starting to become un-satisfied with this form of movie watching and thinking of switching to some other form. When I use my PS3 to stream movies, I often have to reset my login which ussually requires me to call in and have them do it for me over the phone. Its starting to become more of a problem than enjoyment!

[BooBee]

If they see that I'm streaming old TV sitcoms, why the hell are those sitcoms expiring before I can complete the series? Grrr!