[computator]

> the recommendations were better than those I get from Netflix

I can tell you exactly why Netflix makes such poor recommendations, and why almost anyone can do better with modest effort:

Netflix has to give recommendations for you from the 6000 movies that it's currently showing[1]. They can't recommend movies that they don't have. Whereas Taste.io can choose from the entire universe of ~500,000 movies.

An example should make this clear: If you liked The Godfather, it's an easy prediction that you'll like The Godfather: Part II and Part III. Suppose Netflix is currently showing The Godfather, but not the sequels. They cannot recommend the sequels to you. But Taste.io is not bound by that restriction; they can in theory recommend any movie that exists. It's much easier to find matches among 500,000 movies than among 6000.

[1] Netflix has just 6332 movies in the USA as of this date and even less in other countries (eg., 4365 in Canada). Most people are surprised by how few movies Netflix actually has. The Netflix user interface makes it very difficult to get a good impression of the number of movies; you can't just scroll alphabetically through the entire list for example. Source: http://netflixcanadavsusa.blogspot.ca/

[pbhjpbhj]

Presumably Netflix are using a wider system to choose which movies to licence? I wonder what their process for adding movies is - do they have a list from each studio they work with and select a movie to add, out do the negotiated each one separately.

Seems they could have a not yet available category that would let people pre-order; they could recommend a far wider swathe of content then.

[corobo]

It's been reported they use piracy sites to gauge popularity. They probably have other deciders too, this one's the most interesting though.

https://torrentfreak.com/netflix-uses-pirate-sites-to-determ...

[projectileboy]

I get what you're saying, but Netflix seems even worse than that. To wit: taste.io recommended movies for me - which I enjoy and that are in Netflix's current catalog - that Netflix hasn't recommended for me.

[thaumasiotes]

> An example should make this clear: If you liked The Godfather, it's an easy prediction that you'll like The Godfather: Part II and Part III.

Really? I've always heard such negative things about Part III that I never bothered to watch it.

[dec0dedab0de]

Also why the Netflix reccomendation system used to be a bigger selling point for them before they switched to streaming.