Netflix Prize for Nerds
A million dollars is up for grabs for the nerd or geek that can improve the accuracy of Netflix's recommendation system, called Cinematch, by 10 percent. The recommendation system works by asking the customers to rate several movies that they have seen on a 5 star scale. Then based on the ratings that all the other customers have given, the system will predict how many stars that customer would have given a movie that they haven't rated. Contestants will be given a modified dataset of anonymous customers and their ratings for many of the movies that Netflix carries. Your task is to create your own prediction system, train it with this dataset, and put it toe-to-toe with Netflix's own Cinematch. If there is no winner, a $50,000 progress prize will be given out to the contestant who has done the best so far. Given that I am a geek and a nerd I will be partaking in this endeavor so wish me luck!