Sean Owen wrote:
I mentioned this to Otis but thought I'd expand it --
As some of you may know I am actually an MBA student. I have worked on
the collaborative filtering portion of Mahout (formerly called Taste)
for several years. I have always been curious to know what, exactly,
enterprises need out of collaborative filtering. What product would
they like to see?
Hi Sean.
as a ex-MBA student (I got it last year) and a guy who managed to get
this on his companies radar I might be able to help ;-)
Now I have the opportunity to use this as the basis of a business
school project. So I am wondering if anyone can comment on any of
these questions, without naming names if it's confidential --
- What do enterprises imagine they can get out of collaborative filtering?
Firstly we are a 'consumer web site', different businesses will have
different value drivers. We don't sell things , but rely on advertising
as our primary revenue driver. (for Advertising the 2 things that
influence that is how many people click through/see the ad, and how much
we can charge for it).
we also have other KPIs that we believe are lead indicators. (that is we
increases these and the money will follow).
They are engagement (time spent on the page), page views and return visits.
we see CF as a way of increasing most of these.
In advertising we can use it to put more relevant ads (behavioral
targeting) in front of the user increasing the chance they will click on
it, and conversly give us a wider selection of ads to choose to put on
the page (higher RPM).
on the content side, if we can use CF to create a better experience for
the user, they will a) come back b) tell their friends. you can check
out baynote.com if you want some marketing whitepapers on how they sell
it for more detailed examples.
- At what stage is the interest -- barely know about it, ready to use it, other?
actively developing several applications that make use of basic CF, and
researching other more advanced uses.
- What do people use to solve these needs today, custom code, other products?
mahout naturally
- What's the biggest need enterprises have from collaborative
filtering products or services?
a way to measure how effective CF products are, and a easy way to
install it on a given site.
- What's the one product or feature an enterprise would love to see in
the market, in terms of CF?
get your own business plan ideas ;-) I'll keep my itches to pitch to my
VCs ;-)
Thanks for any thoughts, folks!
Sean
regards
Ian
