Netflix "Cinematch" been drinking?

Posted under A Geek Dad's Life, Blog Posts

Netflix recently ‘upgraded’ their home page to suggest movies and TV shows that we might enjoy based on our previous viewing choices.  It recommends movies in several categories from which we frequently rent.  Good idea.  Let’s see how they’re doing…

Because my wife enjoys “The Sopranos” and “Dexter” in the TV Crime Drama category, the Netflix suggestion machine (Cinematch^SM) thinks that we might enjoy the hard-hitting 1970′s crime drama “CHiPs“  See the screenshot for proof.

Reading the synopsis from the Netflix website, who could argue that CHiPs was a possible match for us?

California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers Jon Baker (Larry Wilcox) and Frank “Ponch” Poncherello (Erik Estrada) keep order on the freeways of Los Angeles in this popular television series that debuted in 1977.

Of course, anyone who has actually seen “CHiPs” knows that it has all of the sizzle of “TJ Hooker” mixed with the emotional impact of a Debbie Gibson ballad.

This is the one area of the Internet that might benefit from the “Mahalo” treatment of humans that filter and manage search results.  Netflix has a manageable number of movies and suggestions to monitor with under 100,000 movies in their system; that is a microscopic number compared to the number of web pages available on any given topic.  (Honestly, I think that the whole Mahalo Human Search Engine is a bit like an ant drinking a river.)

Think you can do a 10% better job by optimizing their suggestion system?  You could win their one-million dollar NetFlix Prize.  Better yet, you could start your own DVD rental business.

UPDATE: Funny.  Someone else must have noticed the mis-categorization of CHiPs, because it has been replaced by “Criminal Minds.”  You gotsta getz you some of that Mandy Patinkin.