[kamkazemoose]

You can think, how much would their marketing team have to spend to get the same results that the algorithm contract gave. I'm not a marketing expert, but I'm sure they have metrics like consumer sentiment, name recognition, number of users visiting the site, google search trends, etc. There could also be benefits in recruitment, and that can be estimated based on how much you'd have to pay an external recruiter to bring in candidates the applied, or other things like that.

It was in the news a lot, and was discussed on a lot of tech sites. Plus it gets people talking about their recomendation algorithm, and makes people thing Netflix subscription is more valuable becasue it recommends good shows. It wouldn't be cheap to get the amount of media that they got through more traditional marketing.

[taeric]

Right, but that is a lot of what I'm asking. What makes you think those are all better due to this contest? If I recall, a lot of why it was making the news was because Netflix was already popular in the industry. They certainly weren't that new of a name.

The main one I don't think I would have doubts about is the recruitment. But, I don't recall them being a place that needed recruitment help, even at that time.

To be clear, I found the thing fun to consider. I certainly am not upset that they did it. I do harbor a gut feeling that its ROI is greatly overstated.