Meet Ness, the Pandora for restaurant recommendations(gigaom.com)
gigaom.com
Meet Ness, the Pandora for restaurant recommendations
http://gigaom.com/2011/08/25/ness-restaurant-app/
12 comments
Hi Potatolicious,
I work with the Machine Learning team at Ness. Thanks for all the feedback! Please email us at [email protected] as you have more thoughts, especially about where Ness does and does not work for you.
With regard to only teaching Ness by rating restaurants 4-5 stars, this is a great point, especially for the first 10 ratings. There are a couple particular ways we address this today: 1) Which restaurants you pick tells us a lot. Did you rate hole in the walls vs. expensive places? We have spent a lot of time working on our collaborative filter to address this. Wikipedia has a good article for a starting ground on this, and the papers that came out of the Netflix Prize are great [http://www.netflixprize.com/assets/GrandPrize2009_BPC_BellKo...]. 2) On the personalize page, there are multiple stages. One of them is to confirm that the system is correct about places you don't like, which is obviously also very informative. 3) Sometimes, as with your Chipotle example, we won't be right. Telling us where we are wrong is particularly helpful in correcting the system, which in some sense gives us more information that confirming what we already know. Think of it of correcting a person, who misunderstood what you like from examples you gave. In a metaphorical sense, this is like providing results that have more entropy.
-Jeremy VP of Product & Machine Learning
I work with the Machine Learning team at Ness. Thanks for all the feedback! Please email us at [email protected] as you have more thoughts, especially about where Ness does and does not work for you.
With regard to only teaching Ness by rating restaurants 4-5 stars, this is a great point, especially for the first 10 ratings. There are a couple particular ways we address this today: 1) Which restaurants you pick tells us a lot. Did you rate hole in the walls vs. expensive places? We have spent a lot of time working on our collaborative filter to address this. Wikipedia has a good article for a starting ground on this, and the papers that came out of the Netflix Prize are great [http://www.netflixprize.com/assets/GrandPrize2009_BPC_BellKo...]. 2) On the personalize page, there are multiple stages. One of them is to confirm that the system is correct about places you don't like, which is obviously also very informative. 3) Sometimes, as with your Chipotle example, we won't be right. Telling us where we are wrong is particularly helpful in correcting the system, which in some sense gives us more information that confirming what we already know. Think of it of correcting a person, who misunderstood what you like from examples you gave. In a metaphorical sense, this is like providing results that have more entropy.
-Jeremy VP of Product & Machine Learning
I'm really happy that you have addressed this problem. My question comes down to, in the rating process, I rated a fairly limited amount of places, in terms of categorical scope. Then when I moved into the main application, there were many many more categories available, like ice-cream and bbq. I found myself not finding restaurants that I liked loading in the initial 10 choices, so I kept skipping a lot. You might consider a continuous scroll feature for this initial rating set. Otherwise, integrate with open table, and this will rank as the best vertical search/discovery app I've ever come across.
Guimarin,
Thanks for the feedback. We made a slightly different mechanism for rating on the personalize page (the list of places you saw when you first came to the app allowing you to quickly rate). Either a user can skip a place manually by clicking the X, or can scroll down to the bottom and skip all the places that you don't like. You are saying you would rather just scroll past the ones you don't know?
-Jeremy
Thanks for the feedback. We made a slightly different mechanism for rating on the personalize page (the list of places you saw when you first came to the app allowing you to quickly rate). Either a user can skip a place manually by clicking the X, or can scroll down to the bottom and skip all the places that you don't like. You are saying you would rather just scroll past the ones you don't know?
-Jeremy
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't know if I agree with the other commenter about interspersed skip alls. For me, scrolling past seems less final then hitting skip. If I hit skip, I was afraid that a negative mark would be given to the restaurant. I know that's not the case, but it was a very strong incentive for me not to want to hit skip, or the x. I didn't feel like harshly judging a place that I'd never been to.
Many apps made these days make use of infinite scroll. Users are getting used to this style.
If the purpose of the Skip All button is to compile a list of restaurants the user has not yet visited, and if this information is sufficiently useful such that you don't want to get rid of the button altogether, perhaps consider a happy medium: for instance, a Skip All of the Above button placed between every ten restaurants on an infinitely scrolling list.
I, for one, think the scroll down -> skip all -> scroll down -> skip all design is clunky--especially since I've visited less than 5% of the restaurants presented at any given time.
If the purpose of the Skip All button is to compile a list of restaurants the user has not yet visited, and if this information is sufficiently useful such that you don't want to get rid of the button altogether, perhaps consider a happy medium: for instance, a Skip All of the Above button placed between every ten restaurants on an infinitely scrolling list.
I, for one, think the scroll down -> skip all -> scroll down -> skip all design is clunky--especially since I've visited less than 5% of the restaurants presented at any given time.
Do you actively dislike Chipotle, or is it just something you don't think about?
Does anyone know what their PR did to piss off Om so much?
http://twitter.com/#!/om/status/106833400056389633
http://twitter.com/#!/om/status/106833400056389633
Personally would like an Android version.
Edit: what about a web version or even mobile web version, etc.
Edit: what about a web version or even mobile web version, etc.
I've been dying for an app like this. Yelp's recommendations aren't very helpful for me because the reviewers rarely have the same tastes I do. I'm not a foodie, but I know what I like.
I'm a little bummed that I couldn't find some places I've been to on Ness. Maybe their locations DB isn't complete yet.
I found it interesting that I wanted to rate non-food places too, like coworking spaces I've been too. It certainly fits within their "organizing the world's opportunities" goal.
I'm a little bummed that I couldn't find some places I've been to on Ness. Maybe their locations DB isn't complete yet.
I found it interesting that I wanted to rate non-food places too, like coworking spaces I've been too. It certainly fits within their "organizing the world's opportunities" goal.
I'm very happy to hear that the problem of similar tastes is one that resonates with you.
We are working very hard to quickly add all the places in the US, so you can rate the ones you love! Please request these places by clicking the mail button in the bottom right corner of the app, and we will do our best to get them into the system promptly!
We will be building out more channels soon. You mentioned coworking spaces, what else would you like to see?
- Jeremy, VP of Product and Machine Learning at Ness Computing
We are working very hard to quickly add all the places in the US, so you can rate the ones you love! Please request these places by clicking the mail button in the bottom right corner of the app, and we will do our best to get them into the system promptly!
We will be building out more channels soon. You mentioned coworking spaces, what else would you like to see?
- Jeremy, VP of Product and Machine Learning at Ness Computing
Off the top of my head:
If you're looking at the use case of locations sought via the mobile app, some suggestions would be: coworking spaces, barber shops/hair salons, groceries stores/supermarkets, running trails, and tailors. At least, as a higher priority.
Lower priority, but still important, would be places that don't need to be that close to me. Meaning, I would rather find a good, reputable service that is far away, than a nearby mediocre service. Such as: dentists, doctors, tax accountants, and mechanics.
I don't think I would need reviews for locations like retail stores, gas stations, and that sort of thing. So that wouldn't be important at all.
This is just a quick swag; I'm sure some of the prioritization could be argued. I hope this helps. Keep up the great work!
If you're looking at the use case of locations sought via the mobile app, some suggestions would be: coworking spaces, barber shops/hair salons, groceries stores/supermarkets, running trails, and tailors. At least, as a higher priority.
Lower priority, but still important, would be places that don't need to be that close to me. Meaning, I would rather find a good, reputable service that is far away, than a nearby mediocre service. Such as: dentists, doctors, tax accountants, and mechanics.
I don't think I would need reviews for locations like retail stores, gas stations, and that sort of thing. So that wouldn't be important at all.
This is just a quick swag; I'm sure some of the prioritization could be argued. I hope this helps. Keep up the great work!
It sounds rather cool, but this Englishman-visiting-New-York can't download it because it is only in the US App Store... and there are more restaurants than you can shake a stick at within a couple of block of here, that I'd love recommendations on.
But more seriously, this could be a very good app for when you're visiting a new city, and I can think of a dozen people right now who would love to download it but can't...
But more seriously, this could be a very good app for when you're visiting a new city, and I can think of a dozen people right now who would love to download it but can't...
Love how Ness realizes that I care more about my friends' reviews than that of all the random people on Yelp. Also beautiful UI that makes me hungry just using the app!
The feedback via email thing is slick but confusing. Do I need to provide the details of the restaurant again? If not, it's unclear.
[deleted]
Wow.
I hope it will be on Japanese app store ASAP.
#from Japan.
This is amazing!
Great app, I wish I could code for iOS that well! Slick implementation.
It says I have a 84% chance of liking Chipotle... looks like I should give it more data ;)
One of the problems with this I noticed off the bat is that I only gave 4-5 star ratings. Great restaurants stick out in my mind, forgettable meals never. Unless I've had a very negative experience with a restaurant I'm not overly compelled to go and rate it.
[edit] The UI feels really WP7-esque. I like it. It's like a delicious fusion of iOS and WP7... now I'm wondering what the world would be like if we had something like this across the board.