[tomnipotent]

I don't remember InnoCentive being involved with the Netflix Prize in any official capacity, but I do remember the PR storm they launched after the prize was awarded to make sure they were mentioned in news articles about it.

[IncRnd]

I signed up for the challenge, through innocentive, in July of 2008.

It's entirely possible that as a new solver at the time I fell for innocentive's PR. The netflix challenge was actually the first I ever signed-up to work.