CONTENT RECOMMENDATION: THE ‘HIDDEN’ ROLE OF ALGORITHMS

Dr Daniel Angus

School of Communication & Arts

The University of Queensland

BEYOND THE ‘INFORMATION AGE’

The early internet was taxonomy driven

The social/mobile revolution has seen us generate more data than ever before, the Internet of Things takes this even further.

We are doing less searching, instead information is finding us.

…enter the ‘recommendation age’

PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION

ALGORITHMIC RECOMMENDATION

Recommendation generates ~40% more click through on Google News

2/3 of the movies watched on Netflix are recommended

1/3 of Amazon sales are from recommendations

RECOMMENDATION QUANTIFIED

Estimate the fitness/utility function that matches a user’s preferences given:

Historic behaviours

Item metadata

Relation to other users

Assumes a finite set of users and recommendable items.

The optimal fitness function perfectly models every user/item pairing.

THE ‘COLD START’ PROBLEM

How to draw accurate inferences from small data samples?

Related: think of what sample the recommendations are drawn from?

The popularity problem

Bifurcation of feedback: “I love it, 5 stars!”“The coffee tasted like filtered dirt, gross!”

SERENDIPITY

Controlling recommendations to encourage discovery and ultimately rating of new items.

Not just more of the same.

Solution to the ‘new content’ issue

TAKE HOME POINTS

1. Beware the cold start problem

LOOK AT THAT SHINY THING!

WHAT IS YOUR GOAL?

Sell a product or service?

Build audience?

Build brand recognition?

Manage a communication crisis?

Repair brand damage?

Communicate government policy?

Analyse a communication campaign?

TAKE HOME POINTS

1. Beware the cold start problem

2. Know your question

LOOK AT THOSE NUMBERS!

JARGON BUSTING: BIG DATA

Volume: How much? Gigabytes? Petabytes? What’s a byte?

Velocity: Real time analysis? Offline analysis?

Variety: Photos, text, video, numeric, etc.

Veracity: Reliability, cleanliness.

Value: What is the latent value in the data?

TAKE HOME POINTS

1. Beware the cold start problem

2. Know your question

3. Grow your digital literacy

THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE, BUT THAT DOESN’T EXTEND TO SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS SOFTWARE

NOT ALL BAD NEWS

Know the strengths and limitations of the software

Create (and document) workflows to use different free applications

Be mindful about data integrity

Pay for a bespoke solution

TAKE HOME POINTS

1. Beware the cold start problem

2. Know your question

3. Grow your digital literacy

4. ‘Free’ software may not be cost effective in the long term

WHO IS THE TARGET POPULATION?

Source: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/demographics-of-key-social-networking-platforms-2/

“I think social media is an extremely effective tool, but a lot of people who say it doesn’t work, I think, are not using it right. People are not focused on where their market is. Before starting anything online, you need to have a strategy down pat to go after your target market. By spending time identifying target audience, crafting a message, and choosing the correct outlet, you can save a lot of time, energy, and frustration by doing it this way. A lot of people who fail using social media, I bet, are not spending enough time on strategy.” –Bob Mangat

TAKE HOME POINTS

1. Beware the cold start problem

2. Know your question

3. Grow your digital literacy

4. ‘Free’ software may not be cost effective in the long term

5. Know your target population

TAKE HOME POINTS

1. Beware the cold start problem

2. Know your question

3. Grow your digital literacy

4. ‘Free’ software may not be cost effective in the long term

5. Know your target population

6. Computer wizardry does not replace GOF communication skills

TOOLS OF THE TRADE