Apr 19, 2013

Today I watched a movie - it was fantastic. Netflix just knows what kind of stuff I like to see, especially since they started collaborating with YouTube, Vimeo and Hulu. They know when I fast forward, they know what I watch twice, and all that data feeds into Netflix. Netflix knows I like amazing cinematography and they “borrowed” the idea from that site, whose name I don’t remember, where you could choose your music by picking a color (something like http://musicovery.com/, but that’s not who invented it).

So whenever I turn Netflix on, it asks me “How are you” and from there I can be sure that the three movies it suggests are those I like. It doesn’t take more than three, because I like all of them. At the same time, it feeds the data back if the movie industry just hasn’t made enough movies with great colors or surprising plots, and so they know what’s in demand.

Netflix isn’t the only company that recommends stuff. In fact, everything and everyone is collaboration (like, you know, and interNET), and they know me, if I let them. It all began with Hunch…

I’m on something like 15,793 questions answered with Hunch now. I answered most of those between 2010 and last year, because last year I gave Google permission to use StumbleUpon Data as well as my time spent on sites to analyze what I like and how I am, leveraging the data on Hunch of users like me. Of course Twitter and Facebook data is picked up on it as well, and via Foursquare it also knows what I like in the offline world. Sometimes I still like to answer some questions, it’s entertaining.

Recently, I bought a new trash can. Obviously, trash cans isn’t something I buy a lot, so there’s not much data on me and my trash can buying behavior. But Hunch knows my style, and Google knows I like to buy from sites that look great, unless I can get the same trash can cheaper elsewhere. Thus my Hunchoogle results are dramatically different than those from, say, 2010. I get max 5 results, and I know that I like ‘em. The internet has just become amazingly more simple. When I order on chocri, I only see the toppings that they know I like.

Sometimes I go anonymous on the internet. It’s fun to see what other people like. But there’s so much clutter!

I like new ideas for businesses, and my internet recommendation geniuses have totally picked up on that. Genius - good keyword. iTunes’ Genius is much more than music nowadays (especially after they bought Instinctiv and signed a partnership aggrement with Pandora)… whenever I like something, it conspires with Hunch and StumbleUpon (what do other users like me like) and Google (my past behavior), and analyzes what it probably is that I like about it. Then it analyzes everything (say, websites, books, music, video, product, you name it) to bring up other stuff I probably like. Say I want to go out to eat-  thanks to Foursquare, it knows what I like, thanks to Foodspotting, it knows what to eat. So every time around lunch and dinner time, I get an email with a suggestion either what to make out of the groceries I bought recently (of course the store feeds that info into it), or where to go out to eat. No more yelping needed.

Privacy was everyone’s concern - for about four weeks. If I didn’t want it, I’d just turn it off! And my friends are now in something like ‘castes’ depending on how much I trust them and what I want them to know/ give them access to (think Facebook lists from way back). A positive side effect is that hardly anyone lies anymore- just so tough to keep up with that lie throughout all your systems!

The only thing I haven’t gotten used to is that it’s hard nowadays to meet someone who’s not just like me. Facebook keeps bringing people up who are, well, awesome, but exactly like me! I have to try hard (-> I have to go offline!) to meet someone who disagrees with me and doesn’t have the same trash can as me. Which, come to think of it, there haven’t been many new trash cans developed lately - where did innovation go?