The idea behind collaborative filtering is that stores can compile data of your purchases and compare them with people who make similar purchases to you. The stores can then present you with sales, or announcements of new products that match products you may have previously purchased. This is beneficial because people can be alerted to sales and interesting products that they might not otherwise be aware of.
Upon first refining my Amazon recommendations the results returned were pretty accurate. Some of the results returned, included several books written by Mary Higgins Clark, one of my favorite authors, Brandy my favorite singer, several episodes from the 1990s X-Men series as well as the big budget movie of the same name, and movies starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, the star of my favorite television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It did, however, bring up a few animated films, including Monsters Inc; and for the most part, I do not like cartoons.
The second time that I refined my recommendations the results were similar to the first time. This time the search produced fewer books and more electronics. It produced movies I like and own, including Wild Things, Cruel Intentions, The Matrix, Braveheart, and The Lord of the Rings. It also displayed music by Jennifer Lopez, one of my favorite recording artists, and a list of magazines, including PEOPLE and TEEN PEOPLE the only magazines I read regularly. Like the first time it also brought up some items that I do not have much interest in. It brought up one of the Star Wars movies, none of which I have seen. It also produced a few electronic devices that I was unable to identify.
When I performed the search for a third time, the results were slightly more fruitful, because it produced some interesting items that I had never heard of beforehand. Some things of interested that Amazon found for me were various CDs by Creed, a favorite band of mine, PEOPLE magazine, and a DVD of Spider Man that was on sale. However it did bring up a few uninteresting things, including a video called Bear in the Big Blue House (it was on sale though!). For this search, I was most intrigued by the book titles produced. These books included, Tsar, The Lost Museum, and The Rape of Europa.
Overall it was fun to play around on Amazon and see what kind of interesting things it was able to bring up for me. I had never actually spent a prolonged amount of time on the website before so it was a new experience. I think that systems like this could be used for other things like maybe a dating service or friend finder. If someone is new to an area and they want to find friends with similar interests then they could do searches to find people similar to them in their area. Also this type of system could be used to start a special interest, or hobby group. Someone who may want to form a book club or garden club, or yoga group, etc, could use this type of system to find other people who may be interested in the same things.