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24
Steve Weber
In a book’s Also-Bought list. Every book’s detail page on Amazon
includes a list with the headline Customers who bought this item
also bought. The Also-Bought list shows the five other books bought
most frequently by customers who also purchased the displayed book.
An extended Also-Bought list including many more titles is
accessible from each book’s detail page at the link Explore similar items.
Buyers can view the same list during the checkout process by viewing
Customers who bought [Title] also bought…
The wisdom of crowds
Amazon’s recommendations aren’t just a computer talking, it’s the
collective judgment of millions of people acting independently in their
own self-interest. Amazon is the biggest and most effective word-of-
mouth generator for books because it measures not what people say, but
what they do. People don’t always recommend their favorite current
book to each of their friends and acquaintances. But Amazon factors
each buying decision into its recommendations for like-minded
customers.
Just as a well-programmed computer can defeat a master chess
player, automated recommendations can suggest just the right book,
including books that would never occur to a brilliant bookstore clerk,
says Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos:
I remember one of the first times this struck me.
The main book on the page was about Zen. There were
other suggestions for Zen books, but in the middle of
those was a [recommended] book on “How to have a
clutter-free desk.”
That’s not something that a human editor would
ever pick. But statistically, the people who were
interested in the Zen books also wanted clutter-free
desks. The computer is blind to the fact that these
things are dissimilar in some way to humans. It looks
right through that and says, “Yes, try this.” And it
works.¹
1
Bezos was speaking at a luncheon hosted by The Technology Alliance, a Seattle-
based trade group, on May 15, 2006.
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