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CONTENT RECOMMENDATION: THE ‘HIDDEN’ ROLE OF ALGORITHMS
Dr Daniel Angus
School of Communication & Arts
The University of Queensland
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BEYOND THE ‘INFORMATION AGE’
The early internet was taxonomy driven
The social/mobile revolution has seen us generate more data than ever before, the Internet of Things takes this even further.
We are doing less searching, instead information is finding us.
…enter the ‘recommendation age’
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PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION
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ALGORITHMIC RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation generates ~40% more click through on Google News
2/3 of the movies watched on Netflix are recommended
1/3 of Amazon sales are from recommendations
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RECOMMENDATION QUANTIFIED
Estimate the fitness/utility function that matches a user’s preferences given:
Historic behaviours
Item metadata
Relation to other users
Assumes a finite set of users and recommendable items.
The optimal fitness function perfectly models every user/item pairing.
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THE ‘COLD START’ PROBLEM
How to draw accurate inferences from small data samples?
Related: think of what sample the recommendations are drawn from?
The popularity problem
Bifurcation of feedback: “I love it, 5 stars!”“The coffee tasted like filtered dirt, gross!”
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SERENDIPITY
Controlling recommendations to encourage discovery and ultimately rating of new items.
Not just more of the same.
Solution to the ‘new content’ issue
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TAKE HOME POINTS
1. Beware the cold start problem
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LOOK AT THAT SHINY THING!
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WHAT IS YOUR GOAL?
Sell a product or service?
Build audience?
Build brand recognition?
Manage a communication crisis?
Repair brand damage?
Communicate government policy?
Analyse a communication campaign?
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TAKE HOME POINTS
1. Beware the cold start problem
2. Know your question
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LOOK AT THOSE NUMBERS!
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JARGON BUSTING: BIG DATA
Volume: How much? Gigabytes? Petabytes? What’s a byte?
Velocity: Real time analysis? Offline analysis?
Variety: Photos, text, video, numeric, etc.
Veracity: Reliability, cleanliness.
Value: What is the latent value in the data?
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TAKE HOME POINTS
1. Beware the cold start problem
2. Know your question
3. Grow your digital literacy
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THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE, BUT THAT DOESN’T EXTEND TO SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS SOFTWARE
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NOT ALL BAD NEWS
Know the strengths and limitations of the software
Create (and document) workflows to use different free applications
Be mindful about data integrity
Pay for a bespoke solution
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TAKE HOME POINTS
1. Beware the cold start problem
2. Know your question
3. Grow your digital literacy
4. ‘Free’ software may not be cost effective in the long term
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WHO IS THE TARGET POPULATION?
Source: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/demographics-of-key-social-networking-platforms-2/
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“I think social media is an extremely effective tool, but a lot of people who say it doesn’t work, I think, are not using it right. People are not focused on where their market is. Before starting anything online, you need to have a strategy down pat to go after your target market. By spending time identifying target audience, crafting a message, and choosing the correct outlet, you can save a lot of time, energy, and frustration by doing it this way. A lot of people who fail using social media, I bet, are not spending enough time on strategy.” –Bob Mangat
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TAKE HOME POINTS
1. Beware the cold start problem
2. Know your question
3. Grow your digital literacy
4. ‘Free’ software may not be cost effective in the long term
5. Know your target population
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TAKE HOME POINTS
1. Beware the cold start problem
2. Know your question
3. Grow your digital literacy
4. ‘Free’ software may not be cost effective in the long term
5. Know your target population
6. Computer wizardry does not replace GOF communication skills
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TOOLS OF THE TRADE
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