My "blink" reaction (well, several blinks): good at recommendations, poor at
other editions.
Labeling might be the issue. The label is "Similar books." But half the time
these aren't *similar* books, they are books of affinity... the classic "if
you liked this" recommendation.
I tried these titles:
Into thin air
Who moved my cheese
In cold blood
Into the wild
As someone who likes nonfiction, I thought these all did well in the
recommendations arena. However, from searching the titles, I can see that
the "editions" feature is hit or miss... maybe mostly miss. That looks as if
it needs work.
Back to reccs. I particularly liked these two recommendations:
Year of magical thinking --> Gilead
Silent Spring --> A Sand County Almanac
(There were other reccs for these books, but I plucked these out for
examples)
These aren't "obvious" recommendations (one-gasp-crosses genres!!!), and
it's a long stretch to call them similar, but I can definitely see how
someone reading one would like the other. If the objective is to make a good
match for the reader, it worked.
I even tried a novel, with very nice results:
Suite Francais --> Half of a yellow sun
This is an unexpected recommendation, but it makes perfect sense. I don't
know what Novelist would recommend, but in this case, the "wisdom of crowds"
worked very nicely.
There were a few false drops, but I think we're entering an era where the
opportunity for the unexpected recommendation outweighs the occasional odd
output.
K.G. Schneider
kgs_at_bluehighways.com
Received on Tue May 15 2007 - 06:30:51 EDT