ReadWriteWeb

In a recent post, we looked at recommendation systems, briefly reviewing how Amazon and Google have implemented their own systems for recommending products and content to their users.

We had the opportunity to speak with Satnam Alag, author of the recently published Collective Intelligence in Action, about what makes for a good recommendation system, where the technology is heading, and why Netflix is finding it so hard to improve its own system.

Collaborative Filtering (Wikipedia definition) is a mechanism used to filter large amounts of information by spreading the process of filtering among a large group of people. Unlike mainstream media where there is either one or very few editors setting guidelines, the collaboratively filtered social web can have infinitely many editors and gets better as you increase the number of participants.

Aggregate Knowledge, which operates a content discovery network under the brand name Pique, today announced a deal with BusinessWeek to deliver "user-driven content suggestions" on their website. It's the latest in a string of similar deals - Aggregate Knowledge powers "discovery" of both editorial content and product recommendations for over 100 websites, with a particular focus on retail and media. In this post we take a closer look at the implementation at BusinessWeek - and ask if the results come up to scratch.