The Magic of Amazon

[coalescent]

Last night in the pub, tinyjo and others where enthusing about Amazon's prediction engine, and how spookily accurate it can be about recommending things you want or need. I agree that normally it's very good, but this morning the following arrived in my inbox:

We've noticed that customers who ordered "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind [2004]" have also ordered "Love Actually - Special Christmas Edition".

Personally, I wouldn't have expected the audiences for those two films to overlap by a whole lot. Sure, they're both romantic comedies (at least nominally), but beyond that they don't have a lot in common. I know I only want one of them, and it's not Love, Actually.

So, this recommendation is useless to me; but maybe it's only useless to me. Maybe everyone else who wants Eternal Sunshine actually does want the Love, Actually Special Christmas Edition. This calls, clearly, for a poll, so I ask you: is Amazon right?

[Poll #382436]

Comments

[colours.livejournal.com]

personally, I'd go with just renting them :oD

I quite like it when my dvd rental thing says you might like to rent this if you liked that tho.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

personally, I'd go with just renting them :oD

That's why I put in the bit about financial considerations not mattering, you know. Guilt-free retail therapy! :-p

I quite like it when my dvd rental thing says you might like to rent this if you liked that tho.

Does it have good taste?

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Financial considerations aside I would buy Love Actually because I have a suspicision it's actually quite enjoyable. However there is a hell of a lot of stuff I would buy financial considerations aside so it doesn't make Amazon's reccomendation very useful. This post has made me want to buy DVDs though so maybe Amazon have won.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Financial considerations aside I would buy Love Actually because I have a suspicision it's actually quite enjoyable.

I can't win. Damn you all as pedants! :-p

This post has made me want to buy DVDs though so maybe Amazon have won.

Amazon always wins.

(Unless they're fighting Batman, I assume).

[tizzle-b.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see 'Love Actually' because I'm not sure I can see it being 'wrong' - enjoyable and lightweight? I'm happy to settle for that. Toss in a few cameos and a fairly average plot and it's going to be an entertaining 'romcom' (oh how I hate that phrase).

However, financial considerations aside I'd probably buy every DVD I'd ever considered watching.

Except Adam Sandler's back catalogue - which I'd burn.

[tizzle-b.livejournal.com]

I hate Amazon - which is something I forgot to add to my comment.

I very, very, very rarely buy any media products (either hardware or disc-relating) in shops these days. Normally it's only when they have crazily cheap sales (love for the fopp; a weekend back home from tonight means a visit to the hallowed land of fopp!) or if I know it'll be cheaper instore than online.

Online retailers don't tempt me with "other users bought this" type things at all. Plus; I understand categorisation for play/amazon etc. HMV/Virgin just confuse me!

[ex-susumu64.livejournal.com]

Amazon always wins

You know it (http://www.livejournal.com/users/cdr/856.html)

[colours.livejournal.com]

Yes. It told me to watch the old version of 'the manchurian candidate'. henceforth, i love it.

Amazon always wins

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I've just realised that they have motivated me to buy DVDs from one of their competitors (Play). So they lose. Which makes me Batman. Huzzah!

[kalorlo.livejournal.com]

I find Amazon's recommendations interesting to have a look at and go "Oh, fans of this seem to be buying that", but don't generally pay them any more attention. I have a huge list of stuff I want to buy anyway with far more concrete reasons than that.

Financial considerations aside, I probably wouldn't buy either of those films. Like I said, plenty of other things on the list and even with lots of money I find buying random films seems to be much more of a waste of it than buying books/games/manga/anime series... TV series boxsets are way more tempting. I tend to put off buying films from HMV entirely, and will only buy them online if they're something I *really* want.

[hawleygriffen.livejournal.com]

It only occassionally gives me recs I might consider buying... for example, today for DVDs, it's reccing the Star Wars trilogy, Buffy season 6 (season 6!), and Troy. None of which I intend to buy. Of course, I haven't actually bought that much from Amazon as compared with a lot of people, so it's not gonna be as accurate, probably.

Mmm, Eternal Sunshine...

[liv]

Love, Actually is a DVD I would buy in your "financial considerations aside"> scenario. But in the real world of limited money, time and storage space, it comes a lot lower down the list than Eternal Sunshine. So I'm not sure it counts as a useful recommendation.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Love, Actually = bland nonsense.

Eternal Sunshine = nails scraping down a blackboard.

I wouldn't have picked up the latter in the first instance. Bah, humbug.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

You're clearly insane.

[xkylet.livejournal.com]

I don't know Eternal Sunshine... but I did like Love, Actually except for the beginning voice over going on about the World Trade Center, I thought that was too much.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to be the one to say it.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

OK, so I shouldn't have included that 'financial considerations' caveat. I GET IT. :-p

Yes, Love, Actually is fluff. The sort of thing I perhaps would watch again if it happened to be on on a winter's night when I could curl up on the sofa, but not something I'm going to seek out.

You can burn all of Adam Sandler's films except Punch-Drunk Love, which I rather like.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I have a huge list of stuff I want to buy anyway with far more concrete reasons than that.

My problem is that Amazon seems to recommend stuff that I already have concrete reasons to buy, thereby reminding me that I was meaning to buy them ...

[truckerr.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Eternal Sunshine so wouldn't buy it for that reason, whereas the reason I wouldn't buy Love, Actually is because it's pap.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Hee. :)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I wish there was a fopp near me.

On the other hand, if there was a fopp near me I'd probably be even poorer.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

You should buy Eternal Sunshine because it's the best film of the year.

That is all.

[truckerr.livejournal.com]

I don't know... how overbearing is Jim Carrey in it?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Not at all. Much less than he was in The Truman Show, for example, and I didn't think he was that overbearing in that.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

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