Live data from Hacker News

YouTube videos that have almost zero previous views

astronaut.io

101–110 of 254 posts

Re: YouTube videos that have almost zero previous views

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they probably log a 'shadow view' but recommendations seem to be directly based on your watch history since your recommendations are lost when you completely clear it.

That is a bit odd because I have had watch history off for years, but I still get recommendations that make sense.

Do you subscribe to any channels? Have you liked any videos?

Re: YouTube videos that have almost zero previous views

#104
post #94
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently unaware of any recommendation engine that's worth acknowledging. Netflix, Amazon, Youtube, PornHub, etc... they're all accomplishing little more than "similar to the one, and only one item you last saw", with dramatic shifts in "profiling" from one or two videos. Actually, Netflix acknowledges this and splits the recommendation into "because you watched X..", so at least it covers a greater range (eg la…

The only one I think is good is when I build radio stations off custom playlists on Google play music. Generally speaking, most of the songs are good, and like 40% will get added to the playlist as well.

I don’t use this, or Spotify, but those are the only two systems I’ve heard people give praise for the recommendation engine — I suspect that its because music playlists are almost equivalent to a rating system.

That is, the user is capable of efficiently informing the engine of their taste, and there’s significant incentive for the user to consistently re-evaluate their ratings (playlists), so it can be trusted as up to date.

Another very important aspect is that playlists are useful enough to the user that they actually want to maintain it.

For example, amazon, netflix and pornhub all have rating systems, but they’re not at all useful. The interface isn’t useful enough for reviewing and reflecting on, its not comprehensive enough to keep as a primary list (because it only covers what they offer, which is very limited) and there’s of course no impact on the recommendation engine (because the rating systems are not worth using; chicken and egg). No sane person would touch the things (beyond “upvoting”, which isn’t significantly related to taste)

Imo ratings are absolutely vital to useful reccomendation, but they’ve been totally neglected

Re: YouTube videos that have almost zero previous views

#106
post #4

Quoting astrocat from the previous thread: PSA: Watch in an private/incognito tab/window. If you are currently logged into your google account, this WILL pollute your watched history: https://www.youtube.com/feed/history

Why would someone who is concerned about their watch history have watch history enabled at all?

Oh, you think you can actually disable it? its just an UI setting, Google keeps tracking you anyway. Go ahead and try it, disabling does nothing to the recommendations.

Re: YouTube videos that have almost zero previous views

#108
post #4

Quoting astrocat from the previous thread: PSA: Watch in an private/incognito tab/window. If you are currently logged into your google account, this WILL pollute your watched history: https://www.youtube.com/feed/history

Why would someone who is concerned about their watch history have watch history enabled at all?

history augments memory when searching for specific things one remembers. having it polluted by random videos embedded on third party might not be great. history also drives recommendations, so again having random video views will ruin coherence of the home page suggestions

Re: YouTube videos that have almost zero previous views

#109
post #82
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially with all that data, YouTube still hold a bad recommendation engine.

I'm currently unaware of any recommendation engine that's worth acknowledging. Netflix, Amazon, Youtube, PornHub, etc... they're all accomplishing little more than "similar to the one, and only one item you last saw", with dramatic shifts in "profiling" from one or two videos. Actually, Netflix acknowledges this and splits the recommendation into "because you watched X..", so at least it covers a greater range (eg la…

last.fm is great for recommendations after you've been scrobbling for awhile. I've picked up so many artists from checking out recommended every once in awhile.

Re: YouTube videos that have almost zero previous views

#110
post #93

Sorry to hijack, but I am trying to find any contact information for the creator. Can anyone help me with that? It's very positive.

Generally speaking, asking for help doxxing someone isn't considered kosher.

Ok. Well Id love to chat with him about @bksenior on any social platform. Thanks for the help. His idea is great.
Post reply on HN