Thursday, September 24, 2009

The Netflix Prize Announcement

I went to the Netflix Prize announcement in New York on Sept 21. It was great to finally meet some of my team members, as well as our arch-nemesis BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos. I also did some sightseeing in NYC so it was a pretty good trip.

The prize announcement was pretty well-covered by the media. Reporters from New York Times, Forbes, AP, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, etc were there. Just do a search and you'll find plenty of press coverage of the event.

From talking to my team members, it's not surprising that we all work in IT-related fields, but I'm still impressed by the breadth of experience in the Ensemble team, from health care to entertainment industry to unmanned weapon systems. That's right, from saving your life to killing you and making a movie about it, we got you covered.

BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos revealed one surprising chance-of-luck happening that explained some of the behind-the-scene drama we saw in the last 48 hours of the contest.

PS: I accidentally got quoted in this Business Week article.