I recently visited Kent Peterson’s Blog and saw something you probably won’t see there. It was an ad for clarinet reeds. What do clarinet reeds have to do with bicycling, traveling around Washington, or stuff Kent uses on the road? A quick email to Kent returned a logical answer: nothing. He explained,
is pulling your shopping history when you browse my site. That box to the
right is on of their majorly spooky Omakase links. It populates it based not
only on the content of my site but info Amazon has about the person viewing
the site.
Omakase links? They are custom presented ads based on site content, browsing history, and other factors. Amazon explains (and Greg Linden, Dave Taylor and Shmula comment and expand) the idea.
Like Kent I found it spooky. For me the spookiness came from the sure knowledge I’d never shopped at Amazon for clarinets, clarinet accessories or clarinet books. Their database is tied into some other online vendor where I have shopped. Is the other vendor’s site supported or services by Amazon? Dunno, can’t tell.
What I do know (I’m looking as I write this) is that Amazon’s personalized recommendations for me include nothing about clarinets. They do include two books I’ve been meaning to buy, three I own, one on my library wait list, and five by authors whose books I’ve recently purchased. I add the two I’ve been meaning to buy to my shopping cart and refresh the list. Still no clarinet products, but now a whole bunch of Benchmark Atlases. (I’d added the Idaho one to my cart.) Click for no interest on the California, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado … atlases, refresh and no clarinet stuff. Revisit Kent’s site and, yep, a clarinet ad. It seems Amazon looks at your Amazon history when making Amazon recommendations. The Amazon omakase services, however, seem to have another, or additional, data sources. That’s curious.
What really got my curiosity going in the first place was what I took to be Kent’s choice of words, omakase. What the heck is that? A quick visit to wikipedia reveals omakase “is the Japanese word meaning “entrust” or “protect”. It is most commonly encountered at sushi bars, where the customer may request [omakase] to give the chef authority to prepare what the chef wants to make for you.” How cool is that?
Last night Jennifer had a longing to visit our favored local Japanese restaurant, Tani’s. I asked for omakase. In return I received the best meal I’ve ever had there and a big smile from the sushi chef.
Too bad Amazon couldn’t recommend that.
Yup, just as suspected. Amazon has been adding to their site for years. The ‘in-your-face’ product placement does get a bit annoying, but does serve a purpose. When my wife buys something, I see the new items as advertisements
Jim
The fun part is when you buy gifts and it becomes part of your history and then the suggestion stream.