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YouTube long ago reached the failure point for me in delivering recommended content. Their recommendations frequently include things I've already watched, and t

by sverige 10y ago

YouTube long ago reached the failure point for me in delivering recommended content. Their recommendations frequently include things I've already watched, and the tangentially related items they recommend miss the salient point more often than not. I still use it, but only when searching for specific things.

kyrra 10y ago
Maybe things have gotten better. There was a story a day ago about using deep learning for their recommendation engine. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12426064 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12426064
- joe_the_user 10y ago
  Indeed, well you'll notice that on that thread, deep learning had been happening for a while yet every.single.post said recommendations were awful, worthless. I think this is actually "cause for learning" rather than complaining. I think the OP gives a good analysis of the tradeoffs involved in creating content. I'm not sure if a deep learning system can make tradeoffs out of the box. Perhaps Google could consider non-zero sum game theory for this and use some of their lessons from AlphaGo.
Animats 10y ago
A browser add-on to remove the right column from Facebook would be a win. Youtube apparently needs this as well. So do a lot of "social" sites. It's become a convention - that's where the crap links are.
- RileyKyeden 10y ago
  You can do this with uBlock Origin.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
joe_the_user 10y ago
I don't think YouTube was a "network effect" success story. It was mostly a "free content" success story. I think that's why it's been able to get away with a poor recommendation system and a broken comment system. But that's also a reason that fixing these things would be very hard - there's no network consensus concerning what is the users want. Edit: this relates "nicely" with the post concerning using deep learning in the youtube recommendation system. The sophistication of math deployed is impressive yet the responses uniformly deplore the result. I am suspecting now a big part is that the system broadly never knew "what it wanted" (what is a successful recommendation? Something people click on? etc).
visarga 10y ago
> YouTube long ago reached the failure point for me Since it was long ago for you, you should try it again. I am quite pleased with its suggestions as of recently.
sreenadh 10y ago
Annoying part of Youtube is that I cannot see all my comments I post of other peoples videos and see if I have any reply.
wodenokoto 10y ago
I recently started "watching" youtube. That is, use the front page and the recommendations, and it is a very good alternative to channel surfing on TV. I have discovered a few very funny panel shows and it is fairly good at giving me new episodes of shows. There are so many use cases to Youtube that recommendations can never be good. I want it to recommend music I have heard, for when I use youtube as a radio, but I also want it to recommend me new music in the same genre, although sometimes I want to hear something completely different and want that recommended. I want it to recommend funny videos I've seen when I'm you youtubing with a friend ("Oh, yeah! Did you see this one? You have to see this one!") I don't want it to show me funny videos I've seen when I'm watching youtube alone.

by sverige 10y ago

kyrra 10y ago

Maybe things have gotten better. There was a story a day ago about using deep learning for their recommendation engine. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12426064 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12426064

joe_the_user 10y ago
Indeed, well you'll notice that on that thread, deep learning had been happening for a while yet every.single.post said recommendations were awful, worthless. I think this is actually "cause for learning" rather than complaining. I think the OP gives a good analysis of the tradeoffs involved in creating content. I'm not sure if a deep learning system can make tradeoffs out of the box. Perhaps Google could consider non-zero sum game theory for this and use some of their lessons from AlphaGo.

Animats 10y ago

A browser add-on to remove the right column from Facebook would be a win. Youtube apparently needs this as well. So do a lot of "social" sites. It's become a convention - that's where the crap links are.

RileyKyeden 10y ago
You can do this with uBlock Origin.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

joe_the_user 10y ago

I don't think YouTube was a "network effect" success story. It was mostly a "free content" success story. I think that's why it's been able to get away with a poor recommendation system and a broken comment system. But that's also a reason that fixing these things would be very hard - there's no network consensus concerning what is the users want. Edit: this relates "nicely" with the post concerning using deep learning in the youtube recommendation system. The sophistication of math deployed is impressive yet the responses uniformly deplore the result. I am suspecting now a big part is that the system broadly never knew "what it wanted" (what is a successful recommendation? Something people click on? etc).

visarga 10y ago

> YouTube long ago reached the failure point for me Since it was long ago for you, you should try it again. I am quite pleased with its suggestions as of recently.

sreenadh 10y ago

Annoying part of Youtube is that I cannot see all my comments I post of other peoples videos and see if I have any reply.

wodenokoto 10y ago

I recently started "watching" youtube. That is, use the front page and the recommendations, and it is a very good alternative to channel surfing on TV. I have discovered a few very funny panel shows and it is fairly good at giving me new episodes of shows. There are so many use cases to Youtube that recommendations can never be good. I want it to recommend music I have heard, for when I use youtube as a radio, but I also want it to recommend me new music in the same genre, although sometimes I want to hear something completely different and want that recommended. I want it to recommend funny videos I've seen when I'm you youtubing with a friend ("Oh, yeah! Did you see this one? You have to see this one!") I don't want it to show me funny videos I've seen when I'm watching youtube alone.