Recommendation system with multiple integrated recommenders

摘要

A recommendations system is provided in various embodiments for selecting items to recommend to a user. The system includes a recommendation engine with a plurality of recommenders, and each recommender identifies a different type of reason for recommending items. In one embodiment, each recommender retrieves item preference data and generates candidate recommendations responsive to a subset of that data. The recommenders also score the candidate recommendations. In certain embodiments, a normalization engine normalizes the scores of the candidate recommendations provided by each recommender. A candidate selector selects at least a portion of the candidate recommendations based on the normalized scores to provide as recommendations to the user. The candidate selector also outputs the recommendations with associated reasons for recommending the items.

主权项

1. A recommendations system for selecting items to recommend to a target user, the system comprising:
a computer system comprising computer hardware, the computer system programmed to implement:
a user interface that provides functionality for users of an electronic catalog of items to create and assign arbitrary textual tags to individual items represented in the electronic catalog after selecting said items, such that the textual tags categorize the items represented in the electronic catalog, the user interface comprising a tag entry field on item detail pages of the electronic catalog, the tag entry field enabling the users to create the tags via entry of text strings into the tag entry field;a recommendation engine comprising a tag-based recommender configured to:
programmatically identify, from item preference data stored in computer storage, an electronic catalog item previously selected by a target user, without receiving a designation from the target user of the previously selected item,subsequent to identification of the electronic catalog item, programmatically identify one or more tags of the textual tags associated with the previously selected catalog item in a data repository by at least identifying a threshold number of most popular tags assigned to the selected item, without any input from the target user, the one or more identified tags having been assigned to the electronic catalog item via the user interface, andsubsequent to said identification of the one or more tags, automatically search the electronic catalog using the one or more identified tags as one or more keywords to identify a corresponding set of related items; anda candidate selector component configured to:
select at least a portion of the set of related items to provide as recommendations to the target user, andoutput the recommendations with associated textual reasons for recommending the items.