I found a fascinating article by Derek Thompson in the Atlantic that discusses the new problems created by the rise of computer technology. Now that we have easy access to nearly limitless amounts of information, how do we zero in on the things we want the most?
Two leading companies, Facebook and Amazon, use special algorithms to help their customers navigate their vast treasure troves of data.
An algorithm is just a piece of code that solves a problem. Facebook's problem, with the News Feed, is that each day, there are 1,500 pieces of content—news articles, baby photos, engagement updates—and much of it is boring, dumb, or both. Amazon's problem is that it wants you to keep shopping after you buy what you came for, even though you don't need the vast majority of what Amazon's got to sell.
Both organizations narrow the aperture of discovery by using their best, fastest, most scalable formulas to bring to the fore the few things they think you'll want, all with the understanding that, online, you are always half a second away from closing the tab.
Facebook uses your "likes" and combines it with paid placements from their advertisers to customize your News Feed. Amazon found that there was nothing that existed to help them, so they created their own solution. It churns through millions of items and returns your search results--usually in less than a second! Amazon came up with an algorithm that was both fast and scalable. The article includes this simplified diagram from the patent application:
These are two successful approaches, yet wildly divergent.
The strengths and weaknesses of each algorithm is clear. Facebook knows more about its users; Amazon knows more about its inventory. Each could stand to learn a bit from the other. Facebook is desperately trying to better identify its higher quality inventory, while it's often obvious that Amazon doesn't know its users. Amazon knows what's good, because it knows (a) what's been bought and (b) what's been highly rated. Facebook has likes, which are similar to ratings, butpeople might not be reading most of the content that they like, as Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile suggested in Time. In short, Amazon and Facebook are solving the problem of abundance with similar, but conceptually opposite, formulas.
The article goes on to complain about a mediocre book purchase on Amazon. The next visit brought 19 new recommendations for books by the same author!
Here is the closing argument:
Maybe we like it that way. The equivalent knock on Facebook has often been that it knows us too personally and that its insinuation into our lives is creepy. But that's just the thing. For the age of algorithms to succeed on its own terms, we have to embrace a new version of intimacy that felt natural with the local newspaper and corner shop clerk who knew our name. The machines have to know us.
Here is the link to the full article: The Algorithm Economy: Inside the Formulas of Facebook and Amazon - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic
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