ChoiceStream powers new personalized movie recommendations on Yahoo

Yahoo users can get personalized movie and DVD recommendations, including what’s current in theaters and links to Yahoo’s entire video and DVD inventory, under a new free service being offered on Yahoo Movies. Yahoo Movies, which already offers show times, ticketing options, reviews and other movie-related content, now offers personalized recommendations based on user preference as gathered and modeled by provider ChoiceStream’s technology.

The new service displays movie recommendations under the My Recommendations tab within Yahoo Movies. Consumers` personal preferences are gathered through opt-in mechanisms, such as rating recommended content and identifying favorites, in accordance with Yahoo`s privacy policy. To generate the personalized recommendations, ChoiceStream technology matches attributes of the type of content for which users express a preference with attributes it’s assigned to content in movies and DVDs. The technology “learns” more over time and continues to increase recommendation relevancy as it gathers more consumer preference information across a larger pool of users.

The personalized lists of DVDs and videos to buy are tightly integrated with Yahoo Shopping. According to ChoiceStream, the personalized recommendations can tap into the movie and DVD titles individual users would be most inclined to buy, including often-forgotten or unknown back-catalog and non-mainstream movie inventory. Such “long tail” inventory, which is not included in some other recommendation engines, can be some of the most profitable merchandise in a retailer’s movie title inventory, the company says.

“Yahoo earned its success based on dedication to continual improvement of the consumer experience. Truly personalizing that experience and making it as relevant as possible for each consumer is a significant step forward,” says Steve Johnson, CEO of ChoiceStream.