A $1 Million Research Bargain for Netflix, Maybe a Model for Others
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The shot of new ideas and innovation the depressed marketplace needs is closer than you think.
Netflix has done what blue chip companies such as General Electric and Westinghouse regularly used to do: solicit and reward enterprise outside their corporate walls. Their annual rewards programs were a means to an end: encourage students and others to think big and bring new business practices to a tired system.
Netflix, the movie rental company, announced on Monday that a seven-man team was the winner of its closely watched three-year contest to improve its Web site’s movie recommendation system. That was expected, but the surprise was in the nail-biter finish.
The lessons of the Netflix contest could extend well beyond improving movie picks. The researchers from around the world were grappling with a huge data set — 100 million movie ratings — and the challenges of large-scale modeling, which can be applied across the fields of science, commerce and politics.
In a recovering economy, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is ahead of the curve by seeking the best concepts from the best people wherever they are. “You’re getting PhD’s for a dollar an hour,” he says os his $1 million ivestment. Check out the details. at The New York Times.
via A $1 Million Research Bargain for Netflix, and Maybe a Model for Others – NYTimes.com.
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I just attended the CEDIA conference for custom electronics installers, and am convinced that Netflix is taking over the home. I don’t think there is a single high end TV being released without a partnership to stream rentals directly from Netflix. It’s a direct feed into living rooms bypassing the mailbox. Such a smart strategy.
The connected TV is long overdue even if it becomes just another glorified screen. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is one of the smartest guys around moving digital content access to the next level.