Recommendation Engines - (MIT Press Essential Knowledge) by Michael Schrage (Paperback)

About the Book

"How does Netflix know just what to suggest you watch next? How does Amazon determine what a "customer like you" has also purchased? The answer is recommender systems, the technological concept that lies at the heart of most of the successful companies in the digital economy. Michael Schrage starts with the origins of recommender systems, which go back further than you think (see: the Oracle at Delphi for one of history's earliest recommenders), and a history of the first companies to harness recommendations. He then discusses the technology behind how recommenders work: the AI and machine learning algorithms that power these recommender platforms. Next he discusses the role of user experience, and how recommender systems are designed, and how design choices function as nudges to make certain recommendations more salient than others. He explores three case studies: Spotify, Bytedance, and Stitch Fix, looking at how recommenders can create new business solutions and how algorithms can go beyond curation to content creation. The concluding chapter on the future of recommender systems is perhaps the most enlightening. Moving away from technology and business, Schrage embraces the philosophical, probing the role of free will in a world mediated by recommender systems (a recommendation inherently offers a choice; without the element of choice, any digital manipulation of our preferences cannot truly be called a "recommendation"), and exploring the role of recommender systems as a means of improving the self. In the vein of Free Will, this book presents the essential information while revealing the author's point of view. Schrage wants to push our understanding of recommender systems beyond the technological, to understand what societal role they play and what opportunities they offer now and in the future"--

Book Synopsis

How companies like Amazon and Netflix know what "you might also like" the history, technology, business, and social impact of online recommendation engines.

Increasingly, our technologies are giving us better, faster, smarter, and more personal advice than our own families and best friends. Amazon already knows what kind of books and household goods you like and is more than eager to recommend more; YouTube and TikTok always have another video lined up to show you; Netflix has crunched the numbers of your viewing habits to suggest whole genres that you would enjoy. In this volume in the MIT Press's Essential Knowledge series, innovation expert Michael Schrage explains the origins, technologies, business applications, and increasing societal impact of recommendation engines, the systems that allow companies worldwide to know what products, services, and experiences "you might also like."

Schrage offers a history of recommendation that reaches back to antiquity's oracles and astrologers; recounts the academic origins and commercial evolution of recommendation engines; explains how these systems work, discussing key mathematical insights, including the impact of machine learning and deep learning algorithms; and highlights user experience design challenges. He offers brief but incisive case studies of the digital music service Spotify; ByteDance, the owner of TikTok; and the online personal stylist Stitch Fix. Finally, Schrage considers the future of technological recommenders: Will they leave us disappointed and dependent--or will they help us discover the world and ourselves in novel and serendipitous ways?

Review Quotes

"Recommendation Engines is an eye-opener to readers who [...] find the ubiquitous "what people like you bought" suggestions of online merchants faintly intrusive and only occasionally useful."
--Strategy and Business

About the Author

Michael Schrage is a Research Fellow at the MIT Sloan School of Management's Initiative on the Digital Economy. A sought-after expert on innovation, design, and network effects, he is the author of Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate, The Innovator's Hypothesis: How Cheap Experiments Are Worth More than Good Ideas (MIT Press), and other books.