Netflix Offers $1M Prize For Algorithm

[James Bowery]

The Netflix Prize is offering a $1 million Grand Prize for the first team to publish an algorithm that can predict how a customer will rate a movie based on prior ratings 10% more accurately than Netflix's current algorithm. Netflix provides their movie rating data as the training set and benchmark. There is also a $50,000 annual progress prize for the algorithm showing the most progress during the prior year. The contest began 2 days ago and lasts for 5 years. For an idea of how fast the Netflix Grand Prize could be awarded: Within 2 months of the recent announcement of The Hutter Prize for Lossless Compression of Human Knowledge, there was an entry purporting 6.8% improvement over prior text compression algorithms although it is still in the public comment/judging period. The Hutter Prize currently offers just 5000 Euros for each percent improvement, compared to the $100,000/% for The Netflix Grand Prize. Keep in mind prediction and compression are equivalent capabilities and you might see the urgency of getting your team off the starting block fast.

[jabo...@gmail.com]

It's worth noting that Netflix's algorithm was beaten within a week of
the announcement of the Netflix Prize.

[jabo...@gmail.com]

jabo...@gmail.com wrote:
> It's worth noting that Netflix's algorithm was beaten within a week of
> the announcement of the Netflix Prize.

Here's the article I submitted to /. about it:

Within the first week of the announcement of <a
href=http://netflixprize.com>The Netflix Prize</a> a <a
href=http://www.netflixprize.com/leaderboard>team has already beaten
Netflix's own movie recommendation algorithm</a>. This is pretty
impressive given <a
href=http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/02/1359221>the
previously quoted researcher</a> who said: 'You're competing with 15
years of really smart people banging away at the problem.' The team
is <a href=http://wxyzconsulting.com</a>WXYZConsulting.com</a>
apparently registered by a data mining professor named <a
href=http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/~yiz/>Yi Zhang</a>. Congratulations are
in order for Netflix and Prof. Zhang's team who are demonstrating, yet
again, the power of prizes to accelerate progress.

Apparently my story submission privileges have been suspended for some
reason. I've tried submitting it twice from two different computers
and it doesn't even register as having been submitted let alone
rejected. (Maybe I was going on about prizes too much for their taste.)

[Michael Anissimov]

In the future you should also try submitting to digg...

--
Michael Anissimov
Lifeboat Foundation http://lifeboat.com
http://acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog

[jabo...@gmail.com]

Michael Anissimov wrote:
> In the future you should also try submitting to digg...

Someone beat me to it but with more important news:

Netflix Prize: Progress Prize 2007 Solved By "The Thought Gang" Add as
My Number One

AngryBoy submitted by AngryBoy 10 hours 50 minutes ago (via
www.netflixprize.com)

Just a week after the Netflix Prize was announced, a team called "The
Thought Gang" has solved the Progress Prize 2007 by generating a 1%
improvement over Cinematch. If this turns out to be a legitamate
solution they have won $50,000.

http://digg.com/programming/Netflix_Prize_Progress_Prize_2007_Solved_By_The_Thought_Gang

Any ideas on how to find out who "The Thought Gang" are?

[James Bowery]

Here's my /. submission -- this time they at listed the submitted story as "Pending" rather than sending it to the bit bucket:

Netflix Progress Prize May Already Be Won

Baldrson writes "Merely a week after the announcement of The Netflix Prize a "The Thought Gang" team has already beaten the threshold for the 2007 Netflix Progress Prize of $50,000 . This is pretty impressive given the previously quoted researcher who said: 'You're competing with 15 years of really smart people banging away at the problem.' Congratulations are in order for Netflix and "The Thought Gang" team, whoever they are, for demonstrating, yet again, the power of prizes to accelerate progress."

[Michael Anissimov]

On 10/10/06, jabo...@gmail.com <jabo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Someone beat me to it but with more important news:
>
> Netflix Prize: Progress Prize 2007 Solved By "The Thought Gang"

The Progress Prize was won, sure, but to claim the full $1 million, it
will be necessary to jump ahead by a full 10%. But a 1% improvement
so quickly is quite remarkable.

> Any ideas on how to find out who "The Thought Gang" are?

Apparently this is a reference to a short story by semi-obscure
British novelist Tibor Fischer... so if I were to guess who it is, I'd
say that it is a team from the UK. Not surprising, in light of the
recent Loebner prize victory by Rollo Carpenter of the UK.

[James Bowery]

On 10/10/06, Michael Anissimov <michaela...@gmail.com> wrote:

Apparently this is a reference to a short story by semi-obscure
British novelist Tibor Fischer... so if I were to guess who it is, I'd
say that it is a team from the UK.  Not surprising, in light of the
recent Loebner prize victory by Rollo Carpenter of the UK.

There is a less obscure (but still obscure) reference to "The Thought Gang" in popular culture:  David Lynch apparently formed/used a group called "The Thought Gang" for music in some (one?) of his films.

[jabo...@gmail.com]

The submission was rejected.

James Bowery wrote:
> Here's my /. submission -- this time they at listed the submitted story as
> "Pending" rather than sending it to the bit bucket:
>
> Netflix Progress Prize May Already Be Won
> [image: The Almighty Buck]

> Baldrson <http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery> writes *"Merely a week after

> the announcement of The Netflix Prize a "The Thought Gang" team has already
> beaten the threshold for the 2007 Netflix Progress Prize of

> $50,000<http://www.netflixprize.com/leaderboard>.

> This is pretty impressive given the previously quoted

> researcher<http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/02/1359221>who

> said: 'You're competing with 15 years of really smart people banging
> away at the problem.' Congratulations are in order for Netflix and "The
> Thought Gang" team, whoever they are, for demonstrating, yet again, the

> power of prizes to accelerate progress."*

[jabo...@gmail.com]

Well hush my mouth... CmdrTaco approved my first submission that seemed
to have disappeared into the bit-bucket. Apparently they had a bug
which they corrected.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/09/1344235&from=rss