1. What did you find interesting about the article?
I liked the way the paper presented the various types of recommender systems and the way in which it highlighted the various issues involved in developing these systems. I also liked the way the paper approaches the suggestion that we need to develop a system that will strike a balance between the social and the content based systems.
2. What did you find not interesting about the article?
The paper towards the end talks about people wanting to get opinions/recommendations from experts. However I am not quite sure as to who would qualify as an expert for that particular domain (the paper gives a vague but not quite convincing explanation of the same). Also if the need is to get a recommendation from an expert why do we need the concept of Cognitive filtering. We can just have recommendations from experts.
3. What do you consider the main message of the article?
The main message of the article according to me is that we need Recommender systems. However these systems are difficult to develope.
4. Describe how you rely on non-computational recommendation systems in your daily life?
In daily life the non-computation systems that I use are recommendations from friends, reviews of movies in printed media etc. There are other tacit forms of recommendations (like the cafe example mentioned in the paper) which can also be called as following "popular opinion".
Have you used any of the systems mentioned in the article (e.g., slashdot)? What motivates you to use them?
Yes, I have used pull-technologies like google search engine and also systems like Amazon.com.
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?
I have used the amazon site a lot. However I have mostly been a user in this case and havent done too much contribution. However from personal experience there is one thing that I would like to mention here, I dont quite always take the suggestions offered by the site. However it does help me learn about books that I was not aware of and if not immediately I do use them later sometime.