Consumption and the Self

    This optional web journal is to know a function of the "collaborative filtering."   It was pretty interesting that I could search other people who have same interests with me.  It also let me know what other products those people bought.  For example, I typed some singer's name for popular music category and I saw other people who also like that singer.  The result also showed me what other singers those people like also.

    However, I can't say that it was accurate enough because when I searched something else, it sometimes came out with results that I was not even interested in.  The results seemed too broad to me.  I felt that I would have to spend a lot of time to find more specific and accurate materials.

    Even though I experienced that collaborative filtering was only fairly accurate, I felt that this system would be really helpful to research other topics like dating by matching common interests, finding best products or stores in local area, etc.  And some of websites are using now days actually.  I am asked my zip code when I shop at such as Best Buy or Circuit City.  They might try to find out the people in which area use to buy what kind of products at their stores.  It is not just to be interesting.  It sometimes could really influence in society like what major is really competitive in what college by rating colleges and majors, or showing best income jobs in local area could be really helpful for my career.