[info] one year on, netflix prize still up for grabs

[Alejandro Dubrovsky]

(
yearly interest paid to three people from AT&T for 8.43% improvement on
baseline
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,223211.shtml
)

$50,000 Progress Prize is Awarded on First Anniversary of $1 Million
Netflix Prize

Posted : Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:00:50 GMT
Author : Netflix, Inc.
Category : PressRelease

LOS GATOS, Calif., Nov. 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Computer scientists
worldwide take note: $1 million is still in play as the Netflix Prize
enters its second year of competition.

Netflix, Inc. , the world's largest online movie rental service, today
announced it is awarding the first Progress Prize of $50,000 to
"KorBell," a group of researchers at AT&T Labs, but the Grand Prize of
$1 million is still up for grabs in the multi-year contest to improve
upon the Netflix recommendations system by 10 percent.

"It was a closely fought race for the Progress Prize right to the wire,"
said Netflix Vice President of Recommendations Systems Jim Bennett.
"KorBell's leading submission was posted to the Netflix Prize Web site
just 30 minutes before the deadline."

The KorBell team of Yehuda Koren, Robert Bell, and Chris Volinsky, who
work on visualizing and analyzing large networks for AT&T in Florham
Park, N.J., improved upon the Netflix recommendation system by 8.43
percent. They led a crowded field of more than 27,000 contestants on
more than 2,550 teams from 161 countries.

Koren, KorBell's captain, said he is an enthusiastic Netflix member who
was drawn to compete for the Netflix Prize after the Netflix Prize
dataset gave him an "opportunity to study a fascinating network." Koren
said he and his team spent 2,000 hours in data analysis and computation
to come up with the highest improvement to date over the Netflix
recommendation system. Results of the team's work will also apply to
AT&T Labs' ongoing research and development efforts to enhance the
company's network and communications and entertainment service
portfolio.

A board of judges, including senior engineers at Netflix and well-known
members of the machine learning community, validated KorBell's entry as
the winner of the first progress prize.

Koren will travel to Netflix headquarters on November 19 to receive the
$50,000 at a ceremony at which he will publicly present the team's
results to an audience of Netflix executives, academicians, computer
scientists and others. Netflix will publish a detailed description of
KorBell's submission for the benefit of companies, entrepreneurs and
academicians.

In the meantime, the competition for the grand prize continues. Netflix
will continue to award an annual $50,000 Progress Prize until someone
hits the 10 percent milestone and captures the $1 million purse.

When Netflix launched the Netflix Prize last year, it made available to
contestants 100 million anonymous movie ratings ranging from one to five
stars, the largest such data set ever released. All personal information
identifying individual Netflix customers was removed from the prize
data, which contains only movie titles, star ratings and dates but no
text reviews.

The Netflix recommendation engine spans the 90,000 titles in the Netflix
catalog and is an essential element of the company's movie subscription
service. Each of Netflix's more than seven million members enjoys a
personalized member Web site that enables them to rate movies on a one
to five star scale. Netflix combines those individual ratings into a
database of more than two billion movie ratings and employs proprietary
algorithms and software to identify movies that tend to be rated highly
(or lowly) by people with similar tastes. The accuracy of this software
has been praised by movie critics and members alike and enables Netflix
to fulfill its goal of connecting people with movies they'll love.

Complete details for registering and competing for the Netflix Prize are
available at http://www.netflixprize.com/.

About Netflix

Netflix, Inc. is the world's largest online movie rental service,
providing more than seven million subscribers access to more than 90,000
DVD titles plus a growing library of more than 5,000 choices that can be
watched instantly on their PCs. The company offers nine subscription
plans, starting at only $4.99 per month. There are no due dates and no
late fees -- ever. All Netflix plans include both DVDs delivered to
subscribers' homes and, for no additional fee, movies and TV series that
can be started in as little as 30 seconds on subscribers' PCs. DVDs are
delivered free to members by first class mail, with a postage-paid
return envelope, from over 100 U.S. shipping points. Nearly 95 percent
of Netflix subscribers live in areas that can be reached with generally
one business day delivery. Netflix offers personalized movie
recommendations and has two billion movie ratings. For more information,
visit http://www.netflix.com/.
Netflix, Inc.