People are competing in the Amazon Picking Challenge too! But the picking prize is just $50,000. If it were $1,000,000 like the Netflix prize I'm sure there would be more competition.
I worked on the Netflix Challenge last year but did not come far and gave up after submitting a few mediocre results. Actually, I was proud of myself for my result did not explode but was within the range of the Cinematch's algorithm. The experience has given me a lot of respect for companies that are developing recommendation algorithms.
There should be more great competition like this. At this point, I'd say the benefits coming from all the research and development by the Netflix Challenge community as well as the experience obtained by many hobbyists like myself as the result of this competition has already exceeded the $1 million winning prize.
Actually the post says it will run for a period of time shorter than half of the length of the first contest which could have run for 5 years (10/2006 - 10/2011).
From the post...
And, like so many great movies, there will be a sequel.
The advances spurred by the Netflix Prize have so impressed us that we’re planning Netflix Prize 2, a new big money contest with some new twists.
Here’s one: three years was a long time to compete in Prize 1, so the next contest will be a shorter time limited race, with grand prizes for the best results at 6 and 18 months.
While the first contest has been remarkable, we think Netflix Prize 2 will be more challenging, more fun, and even more useful to the field.
Stay tuned for more details when we announce the winners of Prize 1 in September.
There's a new Netflix Prize coming up; this one will be time-limited. Most contestants shared a lot and made it a very interesting experience; many got contacts in industry that got them good jobs or started their own companies.
Another interesting thing from this is that it sounds like they will be awarding grand prizes for the best entry at set deadlines. In the first contest you had to improve on Cinematch by 10% to qualify to win the grand prize.
This prize was the biggest deal in the tech world back in ~2006-2010. They made way more than $1 million back in advertising and engineering recruitment alone, even if they didn't use the winning algorithm at all.
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