In October 2006 NetFlix announced a $1M contest for anyone that could come up with a recommendation software that could do at least a 10% better job accurately predicting the movies customers would like than Netflix’s in-house software, Cinematch.
The winner, formally announced today, is a seven-person team of statisticians, machine-learning experts and computer engineers from the United States, Austria, Canada and Israel. The multinational team calls itself BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos. The group — a merger of teams — was the longtime front runner in the contest, and in late June it finally surpassed the 10 percent barrier. The BellKor team presented its final submission 20 minutes before the deadline. Just before time ran out, The Ensemble (another contestant) made its last entry. The two were a dead tie, mathematically. But under contest rules, when there is a tie, the first team past the post wins. The extra 20 minutes cost The Ensemble $1 million dollars.
The new recommendation system couldn’t have been achieved by their in-house team and outsourcing the development would have cost well over $1M. Now the leader of mail-in movie rentals will better be able to match you with the movies that you might be interested in; a key ingredient in getting consumers to continuing subscribing. NetFlix said the contest was so successful that they are going to do it again with a new prize for the team that can create individual consumer ‘taste profiles’. Why do we even need employees when we could just set a contest for every benchmark?
Ever since Netflix’s awesome vacation policy was revealed to the public (there is no policy, it’s take the time you think you need), the public has been very interested in how the company operates on the inside. Now, a new 128-page presentation called “Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture” was recently sent around the company, and then revealed by blog, HackingNetflix. It’s all pretty interesting stuff for a large, publicly-traded company. Take a look and let me know what you think…
Netflix stock surged today on news that it may be acquired by Amazon. The stock is currently up over 5% in trading today, at an 11-week high. Both Amazon and Netflix are in the midst of a full-on push to get digital video content into the living room. Amazon via its On Demand service, and Netflix through its streaming service(TC). The two are battling the likes of Apple (with the Apple TV) and to some extent Microsoft (though Netflix also works on the Xbox 360 — and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is actually on Microsoft’s board).
NetFlix may have struck gold with their $1 million challenge to developers who could come up with a reccomendation algorithm that beats theirs by 10%. The contest has been running since 2006, and supposedly there is a winner. Amazon is the king of consumer reccomendations, and this offering from NetFlix paired with their movie rental market share, could make a killer addition to the Jeff Bezoz empire. NetFlix’ (NFLX) current market share is $2.43B.
Glassdoor, a site that surveys employees about workplace conditions has issued lists of the 50 best and worst companies of 2009 as rated by the 11,000 employees in its database. While that number is relatively small, the results seem about as accurate as Fortune’s annual 100 Best Companies To Work For issue. General Mills took the top spot overall, and tech companies were not surprisingly mixed in both the good and the bad lists. Google got into the top 10 but eBay and IAC rounded out the bottom 50. I wonder if seriously struggling stock price has anything to do with those working conditions? Thanks to TechCrunch for bolding the tech companies down the list.
Top 20 Best Places To Work 2009
1. General Mills
2. Bain & Company 3. Netflix 4. Adobe
5. Northwestern Mutual
6. Whole Foods 7. Google 8. SAP
9. Continental Airlines 10. NetApp 11. Intuit
12. McKinsey & Company 13. FactSet
14. Boston Consulting
15. Procter & Gamble
16. Caterpillar
17. Genentech 18. CareerBuilder 19. Apple 20. Juniper Networks
5 Worst Places To Work 2009
1. DHL Express (USA)
2. United Airlines
3. Reynolds and Reynolds
4. Farmers Group
5. Gibson Guitar
Microsoft takes the main-stage to battle Adobe and a slew of startup companies trying to be the leader in Web video and collaborative animation/web design tools. The WSJ outlines the major online destinations that have gone with each service this year. For example, Netflix, CBS, The Olynpics (via NBC.com) have all gone with Microsoft’s Silverlight player this year stealing further business from Adobe.
“Adobe’s Flash player is installed on about 98% of Internet-connected PCs, and Silverlight is only installed on about 25%, according to Adobe and Microsoft. Adobe executives said this gives the smaller company about a two-year head start. But Microsoft is “willing to invest” in order to win certain “trophy sites,” said [Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Microsoft unit responsible for Silverlight].
Places like CBS are raving about Silverlight, saying it is saving costs greatly over Adobe’s flash player. This is bad news for Adobe who has been receiving their share of bad news this year. Another big loss came in the mobile department. They have spent two years now trying to deploy their ‘flash lite’ technology to mobile phones, only to see minimal adoption. Most importantly, Apple will have nothing to do with flash on the iPhone yet, which Adobe has been banking on for quite some time. All the bad news has caused Adobe to lay off over 600 employees as well as scale back on the MacWorld Expo in January. Some say they won’t even be having their Adobe Max conference next year. Will Adobe Flash be a thing of the past?
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