Here's the dataset they use. I have used this as part of developing and testing the fitness of recommender systems in the past: http://grouplens.org/datasets/movielens/
This looks interesting, but I'm always sad to see consumer web apps still requiring you to sign up before you can try it out. Missing out on so many potential users. 1) sell the product then 2) ask for the customers info
Agree. If there was a way to try it out without creating an account, I probably would. As it is, there is no chance unless for months I consistently hear from friends "You have to try MovieLens - it's brilliant." And I've never heard about it, so I close the tab.
http://criticker.com/ is a good alternative. For each movie, it shows you ratings from users sorted by their rating-similarity to you. I've found it really helpful to see all the ratings in addition to getting a predicted rating. I often use the individual ratings to figure out whether a movie is in the cluster of what people-like-me watch, and also to see whether opinion is unanimous or divisive.
It might be great, but personally I don't like the UI. The throwback layout, poor spacing and positioning spiced with non-relevant and distracting ads just put me off. But then again that's just me, I bet somebody loves it.
I do however take issue with numerical scoring that is then changed to a value based word score upon submission. People are notoriously bad at scoring things on a 0-100 scale. It also begs the question why there is 0-100 scale when a non-disclosed word score is applied anyway.
The final nail in the coffin was that they lost my activation email and won't let me in without it. To add insult to injury there isn't an option to resend the email. The only way to proceed is to email support and wait upon their indulgence.
I rated 43 films, then selected "Top Picks for You" and got 0 results. So I decided to not watch a movie and instead go for a walk. Which turned out to be exactly what I needed. Five stars.
Despite there being so many of these sites, most of them kind of fail for me.
For instance... last night I was wanting to watch a movie, but the kids needed to watch it too (as they can't be left unattended with me watching a movie in the other room :)).
So I went off on a search for a movie to watch... with a rating filter -- it needed to be either G or PG.
Nothing. No recommendation site, Netflix, or anything let me filter movies/shows this way. Yes, you have the 'Kids' section on Netflix, but most of the stuff there is deathly boring for adults, I was hoping for something good for both kids and adults.
Although not a personal recommendation site, instantwatcher.com allows you to filter Netflix titles by rating and sort by a lot of other useful criteria such as production year, rotten tomato rating etc.
If you have an iPad I made an app called Dejavu that might be able to help, you can filter by genre and year of release, and if you think it would be good I could potentially add filtering by rating. Check it out :) I'd love to get some feedback
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id914369680
Something like this would be useful if you could cross-reference your recommendations with others. If I have a set of recommended movies, tell me which movies are also recommended to members of my family, so that we can find the one we are most likely to all enjoy.
Shit, I hadn't heard that John Riedl died. I'm really sorry to hear it. I never had a chance to take a class with him, but Professors Konstan and Terveen were incredibly influential for me.
Proof that Netflix doesn't need all that effort to deliver a laggy, annoying, UI. Seriously, the core functionality is essentially the same. MovieLens seems like it might replace Netflix for me. Not-terrible recommendations and a decent UI. Though I've only been using it a few days so we'll see, but it can barely end up worse than Netflix eh?
I'm torn. On the one hand, I just spent a few minutes rating about 100 films, and the quality of the recommendations is so much better than Netflix's garbage that it's mindblowing. As in, we've spent half an hour browsing Netflix trying to find something to watch and settling for something meh, whereas here I have a full page of recs with 5 minutes input.
On the other hand, I don't know if I'm very impressed with anything yet, the recommendations seem obvious. It's more like a neat visual collection manager, I'm not sure I "feel" anything crazy going on in the background beyond what looking at IMDb best-of lists would produce. In other words, the value seems to be in the Netflix-ish "cover collection" display, unconstrained by the limits of their selection.
[+] [-] posborne|10 years ago|reply
This predates some of my more recent work with the grouplens database, but here is a parser I put together for the data awhile back: https://github.com/posborne/mlcollection/blob/master/mlcolle...
[+] [-] dmix|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prawn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathancahill|10 years ago|reply
In most cases, I'd wholeheartedly agree with you, but in this case, the experience is pretty tightly tied to having an account.
[+] [-] nobody_nowhere|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pinko|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivank|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amazon_not|10 years ago|reply
I do however take issue with numerical scoring that is then changed to a value based word score upon submission. People are notoriously bad at scoring things on a 0-100 scale. It also begs the question why there is 0-100 scale when a non-disclosed word score is applied anyway.
The final nail in the coffin was that they lost my activation email and won't let me in without it. To add insult to injury there isn't an option to resend the email. The only way to proceed is to email support and wait upon their indulgence.
NEXT!
[+] [-] nathanb|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wang42|10 years ago|reply
Edit: It seems that the "wizard" mode is updated daily or so.
[+] [-] rancur|10 years ago|reply
until I questioned that trust.
[+] [-] pen2l|10 years ago|reply
For instance... last night I was wanting to watch a movie, but the kids needed to watch it too (as they can't be left unattended with me watching a movie in the other room :)).
So I went off on a search for a movie to watch... with a rating filter -- it needed to be either G or PG.
Nothing. No recommendation site, Netflix, or anything let me filter movies/shows this way. Yes, you have the 'Kids' section on Netflix, but most of the stuff there is deathly boring for adults, I was hoping for something good for both kids and adults.
I ended up not watching anything.
[+] [-] ddeck|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmilloy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hammock|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pen2l|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KerrM|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Harelin|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cryowaffle|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaronbrethorst|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelGG|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scottmcdot|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fayimora|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wang42|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KerrM|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grandalf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RodericDay|10 years ago|reply
On the other hand, I don't know if I'm very impressed with anything yet, the recommendations seem obvious. It's more like a neat visual collection manager, I'm not sure I "feel" anything crazy going on in the background beyond what looking at IMDb best-of lists would produce. In other words, the value seems to be in the Netflix-ish "cover collection" display, unconstrained by the limits of their selection.