[HN Gopher] Recommendations and Results Organization in Netflix ...
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       Recommendations and Results Organization in Netflix Search
        
       Author : infodocket
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2021-06-01 15:11 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
        
       | inshadows wrote:
       | I read just the abstract and I hate it. Nowadays you cannot
       | really use search functionality on sites to find what you
       | actually want anymore.
        
         | dividedbyzero wrote:
         | Lots of bad recommendation systems out there, to be sure, but
         | Netflix's strikes me as one of the better (best?)
         | implementations. If I search for a particular title, it's
         | usually at the top (or close to, with fuzzier search terms),
         | whereas when they don't have what I'm looking for (happens a
         | lot, their library is pretty small where I live) their
         | recommendations are at least pretty similar to what I'm looking
         | for. Compared to comparable solutions with dumb search, it's a
         | much better experience.
         | 
         | But I agree insofar as botched recommenders that you can't
         | circumvent easily are the absolute worst UX.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | jimbob45 wrote:
           | I heavily agree. On both Netflix and Hulu, I frequently find
           | exactly what I'm looking for. Even better, Hulu will
           | sometimes tell me that they don't have the item I'm looking
           | for. It's insane to me that they include items they _don't_
           | have in their DB just to enhance the search experience.
        
             | deckard1 wrote:
             | > Hulu will sometimes tell me that they don't have the item
             | I'm looking for
             | 
             | Netflix does this too (or did? it's been awhile). It's one
             | of those tiny little details that really makes a
             | difference.
        
               | selfhoster11 wrote:
               | Not in my experience (on mobile app). It just alludes to
               | that fact by suggesting shows that are very close to the
               | thing you were searching for, but the thing that you did
               | actually search for is conspicuously missing from the
               | results list.
        
               | JackGreyhat wrote:
               | Exactly. Its like they're saying: We don't have what you
               | want, but here's something that's close enough. Be happy.
        
             | EForEndeavour wrote:
             | Explicitly giving the user feedback about items currently
             | missing from their catalog is ingenious. Whenever I search
             | for something that's not on a given streaming platform, the
             | slew of data-driven recommendations of other things that
             | are similar yet _still absolutely not_ what I was looking
             | for amplifies my disappointment. Just give it to me
             | straight, CraveFlixPlus Prime Video Max!
        
       | lumost wrote:
       | There doesn't appear to be any details on the success of their
       | implementation or how they implemented it. This paper effectively
       | says "here are the challenges, we solved them".
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | shoto_io wrote:
       | I really miss the stars on Netflix. Now I usually open up a
       | browser and look up the movie before I start watching. So sad!
        
         | pookeh wrote:
         | I use Trim [1] for Chrome to add ratings in the netflix
         | interface. It also dims recommendations that are below my
         | specified stars. Works really well!
         | 
         | [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/trim-imdb-
         | ratings-...
        
           | shoto_io wrote:
           | nice! Thanks for sharing!
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | extra88 wrote:
         | I've always preferred the five-star scale over a simple thumbs-
         | up, down. The stars never went away on the dvd.netflix.com
         | interface (I still have a disc plan along with streaming). I
         | think the red stars for movies/shows I haven't rated reflect
         | Netflix's guess for how I'll rate them but further down there's
         | small print that shows Neflix's guess numerically and the
         | numeric average rating for all users.
        
         | denimnerd42 wrote:
         | I don't miss that. I'd rather watch the first 5 minutes of a
         | movie and see if it's for me. If I see 3 stars I will
         | automatically not want to watch it but I may enjoy such a movie
         | or TV show.
        
         | GordonS wrote:
         | I don't have Nexflix, but I do have Amazon Prime (and an Amazon
         | Fire HD stick), and I _love_ the fact that it shows ratings
         | from both Prime users _and_ IMDB - it would be a major PITA to
         | have to look up everything one-by-one on my phone!
         | 
         | Off the top of my head, I think it shows IMDB ratings for shows
         | from other services too (e.g. Disney+, BBC iPlayer).
        
           | omega3 wrote:
           | I find IMDB ratings are often over inflated, rotten tomatoes
           | ratings are much better but not perfect.
        
           | tyingq wrote:
           | Of course, they don't allow you to filter and/or sort on
           | those ratings. Argh.
        
           | derivagral wrote:
           | IMDB is owned by Amazon. I would assume that's why nobody
           | else has something similar.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMDb
        
       | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2021-06-02 23:01 UTC)