Amazon Recommends...
I'm a impulse book buyer, tending to mean that I only buy books that I 'need' for work or 'study' from Amazon which is only about a tenth of the total number of books that I buy. I can't walk past a book store without going in, and rarely leave without at least one, more usually two or three books.
What conclusion can you draw when your top two Amazon recommends are Chomsky and Pilger? I'm sure it is based on my previous purchases (neither Chomsky or Pilger from amazon) and my wishlist items but then I started wondering how many people are influenced pretty heavily by the "We have recommendations for you" thing. If, say, less famous contemporary versions of Mein Kampf or Marx's Communist Manifesto were recommended would you buy them? Or be tempted? I wonder if they leave it entirely up to some algorithm or whether publishers can pay for a 'boost', not bypassing entirely the "other people that bought books like you also bought" but fiddling with it a wee bit. Hmmm.
So, I skipped my Film class tonight. I had justified it saying that I would go and see a film instead but now I'm just hungry. Might have to find someone to go for food with and maybe a pint. Or two.
Posted by Paul at May 7, 2003 08:23 PM |