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Jackson Fox Assignment 16 source: Terveen, L. & Hill, W. (2001) "Beyond Recommender Systems: Helping People Help Each Other." In J. M. Carroll (Ed.) Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millennium, ACM Press, New York, pp. 487-509. What did you find interesting about the article? I liked the dicussion of the various techniques for recommendation systems, though to some degree familiarity with said systems made much of the discussion seem uninteresting. What did you find not interesting about the article? As I said, familiarity breeds disinterest. Having used slashdot, amazon, cdnow, about.com, and firefly extensively, I have long since formulated my own opinions of the services. I thought the discussion in the article didn't add much to this (does this make the article a poor recommendation service?). What do you consider the main message of the article? I'm not sure that the article has any one main message, though the authors do focus at the end of the paper on how recommendation systems might be improved with the inclusion of moderations systems and adding new dimensions to recommendation criteria such as expertise. Describe how you rely on non-computational recommendation systems in your daily life? I can't say that I rely heavily on any particular means of recommendations on a daily basis. I do use newspapers and opinions of friends and family when finding interesting activities on the weekends, good restaurants, and movies to see. Have you used any of the systems mentioned in the article (e.g., slashdot)? and what motivates you to use it? Quite a bit. I like to explore new areas of interest and expose myself to new ideas, so I am very fond of browsing cdnow or amazon for music and book recommendations similar to my own. I enjoy perusing online forums like (and including) slashdot for information on current and interesting topics in the news. I peruse weblogs for interesting tidbits. Basically I use recommendation systems online to help find interesting things that I wouldn't know about otherwise. I use them to expand my own knowledge and experiences. Choose one of the systems mentioned (see URLs in the article and in the slides for the lecture) and briefly describe your experience with the system? My favorite is probably the all music guide or amazon. I use both to explore new music, and amazon to explore to new books. With amazon, I can rate my own music collection, and recieve recommendations based on the answers other users have given. Similarly, the all music guide allows me to browse lists compiled by staff reviewers of related artists and genres. In both cases my goal is to find new bands and musical genres that appeal to my tastes. Assignment 16
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