Blog: modeling
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Trigger Happy
8/12/09Continue ReadingI was surfing the web the other day looking for some deals and entered into a sweepstakes, just for kicks. In the process, I inadvertently signed up for some educational deals and also provided them with my number (read the fine print, boy) . Within ten minutes (if that) of clicking the submit button, I received a call from a call center asking if I wanted any brochures or advice regarding higher education. I was amazed at the quick turnaround time from entering the information on the website, updating the database to triggering an event at the call center.
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Online Analytics in Action - Netflix Competition: Now it’s time to pay up
7/1/09Continue ReadingSee a previous post for a summary of the competition - 'Netflix: What were they thinking?
It seems that after 3 years a team has won the prize. The winning solution was submitted on June 26th, and still must be verified, but all indications are that this solution has broken through a barrier many thought unattainable. The winning solution predicts customers' movie interests 10%+ better than Netflix's internal system. That does not sounds like much (10%) but given that Netflix had already squeezed about as much information out of their data as possible, and additional data sources could not be used in the competition, this was a colossal task.
