Amazoniscient
Amazon.com is starting to creep me out. Its recommendations for me are too good. Am I so predictable? Am I so easily categorizable that they can guess both my most recent and my likely next media purchases? I don't think so. I think they're in my head and I want them out.
I log on to Amazon to check something or other and they show a set of recommendations, just for me, as they do for you, I'm sure. Except mine are eerily prescient. Today, for example, it recommended a CD I bought a few months ago, Transatlanticism by Death Cab For Cutie. It claimed it did so because I bought The Office DVD for Eisa last year, but that seems a little farfetched, doesn't it? I told Amazon I already owned that one, forcing it to regenerate my custom front-page store. It popped up another CD I bought this year. I told it I had that one, and it proceeded to list three more added to my collection in the past six months. I read about a band called Arcade Fire the other day; Amazon claims it's recommending it to me because I bought Baseball Prospectus 2004. Sure, sure it is.
I can't be that transparent. Is it so likely that just because I like listening to the Beta Band I like reading John Stewart and watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Amazon is evidence that maybe it is, but I prefer to think that they're spying on me, maybe paying Eisa for information.
Because there it was, plain as day. My cell phone's been broken for a couple of days, and I finally decided to replace it. I went on the internet to look at deals, chanced upon Amazon, and what should they have right on top but a cell phone. Just for me, it said. They know too much.
I log on to Amazon to check something or other and they show a set of recommendations, just for me, as they do for you, I'm sure. Except mine are eerily prescient. Today, for example, it recommended a CD I bought a few months ago, Transatlanticism by Death Cab For Cutie. It claimed it did so because I bought The Office DVD for Eisa last year, but that seems a little farfetched, doesn't it? I told Amazon I already owned that one, forcing it to regenerate my custom front-page store. It popped up another CD I bought this year. I told it I had that one, and it proceeded to list three more added to my collection in the past six months. I read about a band called Arcade Fire the other day; Amazon claims it's recommending it to me because I bought Baseball Prospectus 2004. Sure, sure it is.
I can't be that transparent. Is it so likely that just because I like listening to the Beta Band I like reading John Stewart and watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Amazon is evidence that maybe it is, but I prefer to think that they're spying on me, maybe paying Eisa for information.
Because there it was, plain as day. My cell phone's been broken for a couple of days, and I finally decided to replace it. I went on the internet to look at deals, chanced upon Amazon, and what should they have right on top but a cell phone. Just for me, it said. They know too much.
