How Netflix Decides What You'll Watch Next

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It is sad to think that this much effort goes into quite possibly the worst recommendation system on the planet. Love Netflix. Hate its terrible recommendation system.

We know what you played, searched for, or rated, as well as the time, date, and device. We even track user interactions such as browsing or scrolling behavior. All that data is fed into several algorithms, each optimized for a different purpose. In a broad sense, most of our algorithms are based on the assumption that similar viewing patterns represent similar user tastes. We can use the behavior of similar users to infer your preferences.
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Oh, you just watched a Texas Chainsaw Massacre marathon? We recommend Glee, SpongeBob SquarePants and A Few Good Men.
 
I guess I don't terribly mind the system, on the PS3 is basically just equates to special "genres" like "Because you watched Warehouse 13..." I actually like those genres...

What really irks me, their new release or newly added sections hardly EVER change. From what I have seen form sites that list new entries etc... Those sections should almost be completely different titles each week or two. Netflix seems to add/remove a good number of titles fairly frequently.

I am just pulling this out of my butt... but I suspect they have some system of pushing/encouraging certain shows. Pretty sure they were doing this back in the DVD rental only days. The New Releases section always seemed to omit the blockbusters, you would have to specifically search for those.
 
dandirk said:
I am just pulling this out of my butt... but I suspect they have some system of pushing/encouraging certain shows. Pretty sure they were doing this back in the DVD rental only days. The New Releases section always seemed to omit the blockbusters, you would have to specifically search for those.
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Didn't they get caught years ago slowing down the shipping/handling/processing of "unlimited" dvd rentals?
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Yea. I'll be honest... their system is pretty damn random.
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Wait until you have a toddler watch a few shows.... Recommended: My Little Pony, Yo Gabba Gabba, Super Why... It really messes things up. I am hoping that's why my recommended stuff shows that. It is nice to browse and see Yo Gabba Gabba and some action flick together. :)
 
Their recommendations have been pretty spot-on for me, but I don't have kids or people that frequently watch movies on my account.
 
So if you search for Drama and scrolled 3/4 the way down the page, you're also likely to be interested in whatever movie result is listed under Action 3/4 the way down the page. Gotcha.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Wait until you have a toddler watch a few shows.... Recommended: My Little Pony, Yo Gabba Gabba, Super Why... It really messes things up. I am hoping that's why my recommended stuff shows that. It is nice to browse and see Yo Gabba Gabba and some action flick together. :)
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It regularly recommends things like Transformers and Human Centipede to me. I don't watch those types of movies at all.

What else... Batman Beyond... Atlas Shrugged 2...

I really don't much care for that stuff.
 
I think that part of Netflix's problem is that it has literally NO idea who is watching at a given time. If it tries to profile your viewing habits, how does it know it is YOUR viewing habits? In my family, we have me, my wife and my daughter. Okay - so what does the algorithm come up with for a person who likes Breaking Bad, Bollywood love stories and My Little Pony?
 
To me it feels more like they are trying to shove certain things down everyone's throats. My guess is because they get more money for doing so. Some sort of incentive is driving the system and has nothing to do with taste or matching... /opinion.
 
BryanSTG said:
Didn't they get caught years ago slowing down the shipping/handling/processing of "unlimited" dvd rentals?
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Not busted per se, don't think they ever stopped. But yes... if you "rented" what they deemed was to many from an unlimited account, they would essentially boot you to the bottom of the fill queue. Which meant if a disk had "long wait"... it meant that (if you hardly "rented", you would get "long wait" stuff right away.

Yes I was a horrible person, would basically rip and send back the disks right away. It was a 2 day turn around and you could tell when you hit that "usage" mark, it would take 3-4 days for turnaround.

They gave the same excuse all companies do when people ask about limits on "unlimited" service. They had to do it to keep high service levels for other customers which they make more money on. I always ask... "Isn't that what limits are for?".
 
Love Netflix. Hate its terrible recommendation system.
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Me too and for several reasons.

Actually breaking down the movies into genres is not the problem, it's when they get smart and try to meta tag them in so many ways that the same movies show up repeatedly in line after line of they're browsing screen.

<Violent>The movie is violent
<Funny>it's funny
<Western>
<SciFi>
<Gritty>
<Light Hearted>
<Foreign>
<It's a Movie>
<It's on TV>
<It's a Movie made for TV>
<And Fuck me Sideways it's Popular on The Oprah Network>
 
Totally agree with the hating of the Netflix recommendation system. It is actually why I cancelled my subscription service with them recently, I just couldn't take how horrible that system is anymore. I'll live without them.
 
You've watched "Avengers"

Code: 
10 Snort coke
20 Shoot up with heroin
30 Do some speed
40 Drop enough acid to kill three people instantly
50 Watch the "Cartoon Wars" episode of South Park
60 Have people fling DVD boxes at you
70 Pick up one of the boxes and use it as a recommendation
80 GOTO 10
 
What they really need is a way to nuke you account history. It shouldn't be recommending me shit based on what my kid watched four months ago or some British comedy series I watched one day when I was stuck home with the flu.
 
You don't even have to watch a complete program either.
I was at a friends house helping her with her iPad and and noticed a someone watched Whores Glory on her iPad. I was curios to see what that was about and just glanced through it on my iPad and now I have a list of gay and lesbian programs as a scroll down on Netflix.
 
drlawyer said:
I think that part of Netflix's problem is that it has literally NO idea who is watching at a given time. If it tries to profile your viewing habits, how does it know it is YOUR viewing habits? In my family, we have me, my wife and my daughter. Okay - so what does the algorithm come up with for a person who likes Breaking Bad, Bollywood love stories and My Little Pony?
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Bride and Prejudice.
 
Zepher said:
You don't even have to watch a complete program either.
I was at a friends house helping her with her iPad and and noticed a someone watched Whores Glory on her iPad. I was curios to see what that was about and just glanced through it on my iPad and now I have a list of gay and lesbian programs as a scroll down on Netflix.
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Try watching four seconds of this and see what comes up in your list...

https://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Meet_the_Fokkens/70245040?locale=en-US

Whore's Glory is in my list now... :(
 
We even track user interactions such as browsing or scrolling behavior.
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Funny, I find myself scrolling for days because it's so damn hard to find what I'm looking for.
 
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