Applying the Netflix recommendation algorithm to dating
In your online journeys you have probably encountered recommendation algorithms . Amazon will tell you that Customers who viewed this item also viewed . YouTube will automatically queue up another video that it thinks you'll like. Instagram will suggest new people to follow. Many of these algorithms use an approach called collaborative filtering , where recommendations are based on the selections of people who have similar tastes to you. The best known of these techniques is matrix factorization , used by the team that won the Netflix Prize in 2009 — which is why it's often called the Netflix recommendation algorithm . Dating recommendations Could collaborative filtering be used for online dating, to recommend people that you'd be attracted to? There's no reason why not. There's a spreadsheet floating around with data from dozens of speed dating events. With a bit of effort you can apply collaborative filtering to answer the question: given the first N rounds of