iTunes Genius

I love iTunes. It’s great to be able to buy one song from an album instead of 9 other songs you’ll never listen to just so you could get the one you liked.

The one thing about iTunes that I can’t figure out is their Genius component – which is supposed to look at the songs you’ve purchased and listen to regularly and then recommend songs that are similar which you might like.

I bought an Annie Lennox song the other day. It’s called “Shining Light”. I’ve been a big fan of hers for a very long time and have several of her songs in my iTunes library.

iTunes sent me an email a day after the purchase of Annie Lennox and included some of their Genius recommendations.

I’m not sure about “Shine” from the band Booty Luv!?! Did iTunes recommend it because they both have titles about shine? (For the record, the dance song is not bad, but I can't help but snicker each time I think about the band's name. And I see no connection to Annie Lennox.)

Netflix has the same type of recommendation service – where they try to guess your tastes based on ratings you give movies that you’ve watched. It’s not much better. At least they are doing something about it though.

How to improve your iTunes Genius recommendations
Netflix offers another $1 million prize for better movie recommendations
Enter an algorithm to improve Netflix's recommendations

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