At a staff meeting in the summer of 2006, [CEO Reed] Hastings suggested a radical idea: Why not have a public contest? Netflix’s recommendation system was powered by the wisdom of crowds; now it would tap the wisdom of crowds to get better too.
— The New York Times’s Clive Thompson has a fascinating write-up on the US$1 million prize offered by Netflix to any programmer that can improve its recommendations engine by 10%, and the Napolean Dynamite problem that’s making it hard work. (via Patrick Wang)
