Netflix is curious … to the tune of one million dollars. If there’s a better way to help customers find the movies they’ll love, then it could make a big difference to their customers and their business.
So Netflix is offering $1 million to anyone who can improve their prediction accuracy by 10%.
I’m stunned. In an industry where the average transaction is under $20 per month, Netflix is willing to pay seven figures for a 10% improvement in match accuracy. Incredible!
What’s the value of the average job placement? Even if an employer uses Craigslist or Google Base, where job ads are free, the time investment to place an ad and screen applicants is far greater than any transaction in the video rental industry.
Yet when was the last time you read about a job board’s major investment in search/match accuracy? With the exception of Career Builder, who licenses search technology from FAST, other job sites seem content to roll their own relatively simplistic search … offloading the job of sorting through mediocre results to employers and job seekers.
With millions at stake, a major player in the electronic job market will eventually seize on search/match as a key differentiator. Imagine the press coverage, customer interest, and the speed at which a firm could vault into the lead if they employed the concept demonstrated by Netflix?
Bravo Netflix … a brilliant idea!
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