Recommendation as collaboration in web search

Abstract

Recommender systems now play an important role in online information discovery, complementing traditional approaches such as search and navigation with a more proactive approach to discovery that is informed by the users' interests and preferences. To date recommender systems have been deployed within a variety of e-commerce domains, covering a range of products such as books, music, and movies, and have proven to be a successful way to convert browsers into buyers. Recommendation technologies have a potentially much greater role to play in information discovery, however, and in this article we consider recent research that takes a fresh look at web search as a fertile platform for recommender systems research as users demand a new generation of search engines that are less susceptible to manipulation and more responsive to searcher needs and preferences. Copyright © 2011, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. All rights reserved.