I just ran across the favorite item lists at Amazon. These lists are a great supplement to the collaborative filtering they already do (i.e. if you liked this book, you might like these three books too). If they hooked these lists into the item detail pages, they would really have a powerful way for people to find related reading/listening/viewing materials: "Like this item? It appears on these three lists."
Recommendations based on purchases are fine, but nothing beats personal recommendations from people with similar interests or specific expertise. Once again, Amazon is doing it right.**
Some favorite item lists that I found interesting:
- Biggest Brains of the 20th Century
- The Only Reading List You'll Ever Need
- Dictionaries of the strange and fabulous
- Best Of The Fully Loaded DVD
- Music that makes you question the band's sanity
- I'm a Flailing Raver: The Best Electronic Records Ever
** Amazon does so many things right, but almost no one copies them, beyond stealing their tabs motif (which is not even close to being one of their best ideas). Someone should write a book on Amazon's ecommerce practices; The Amazon Way: Doing It Bezos' Style would be a non-technical guide for consumer-based, small-to-midsize ecommerce businesses wanting a template on which to base their online endeavors.
