New Amazon Patents on Content Personalization 88
theodp writes "Defending its decision to concoct recommendations to steer customers to buy items at Amazon's new Apparel Store, a spokeswoman said Amazon "felt it would be evident to people that since the store was so new, we wouldn't have the transaction history to create database similarities." But in this just-published patent applicaton, Amazon earlier told the USPTO it's able to use product viewing histories to determine the similarity or relatedness between products for which little or no purchase history data exists. So which claim should you believe?"
alternatives... (Score:4, Informative)
for those of you who (like me) dislikes amazons use of patents, show it by buying your books elsewhere. two good examples of elsewhere are:
from europe: www.bol.com [bol.com]
from the us: www.barnesandnoble.com [barnesandnoble.com]
time to put your money where your mouth is, of something to that effect...
Re:alternatives... (Score:1, Informative)
Solution? Don't buy at Amazon (Score:4, Informative)
While Amazon does everything in their power to relieve you of choice, the Tattered Cover actually stands up for your rights [freeexpression.org].
Make Bezo get a real job.
Re:clothes != books (Score:1, Informative)
If you consistently buy or investigate books that place you into an established target demographic profile, it's a basic tennent of marketing that you're demographic profile will not change just because you are buying something else. The profile decribes you and your household's buying persona.
Simplified Example:
Buyer A consistently investigates and puchases $75 coffee table books.
Buyer A also buys books on child-rearing and parenting.
Buyer A also purchases books on behavioral psychology.
That's more than enough information to build a basic profile about Buyer A's purchasing patterns that includes their household income level, education level, disposable income, median age, etc.
Once you have a basic profile about Buyer A, you can correlate that into any market which has developed any sort of buyer demographics, and the demographic profiles compiled by the apparel industry are some of the most detailed on the planet.
Re:I think you're mistaken (Score:3, Informative)
Here's how it works... they already have your book and CD data, along with everybody else's. When somebody who has bought a Britney Spears album buys Levi's Jeans, it can cross link Britney with Levi's. Anybody else who has bought Britney music in the past is now presumed to like Levi's jeans as a result, until other data comes along to contradict that.
Yeah, the initial predictions will be wildly inaccurate, but quickly they will amass the base data with which to get some close-enough returns.
One little piece of info Amazon had better be quickly figuring out... which users are boys and which are girls.