Alexis C. Madrigal, « How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood », The Atlantic, 2 janvier 2014, disponible en ligne.

« They [Netflix] even offered a $1 million prize to the team that could design an algorithm that would improve the company’s ability to predict how many stars users would give movies. It took years to improve the algorithm by a mere 10 percent.
The prize was awarded in 2009, but Netflix never actually incorporated the new models. That's in part because of the work required, but also because Netflix had decided to “go beyond the 5 stars,” which is where the personalized genres come in.

The human language of the genres helps people identify with the recommendations. “Predicting something is 3.2 stars is kind of fun if you have a engineering sensibility, but it would be more useful to talk about dysfunctional families and viral plagues. We wanted to put in more language,” Yellin said. “We wanted to highlight our personalization because we pride ourselves on putting the right title in front of the right person at the right time.”
And nothing highlights their personalization like throwing you a very, very specific altgenre. »