Recommender+engine.pdf

RWTH Aachen University University of Bonn Fraunhofer FIT E-Commerce Seminar WT 08/09 Thomas Hess (289222) February 1, 2009 Recommender engines are used by more and more e-commerce businesses to help con- sumers finding products they are interested in. The paper describes what recommender engines are and what role they play in e-commerce. Recommender engines use various techniques that use dif- ferent knowledge sources to make recommendations. The paper explains these techniques and their strengths and weaknesses. Some of the common issues that recommender systems face are discussed and possible solutions presented. Concluding examples of recommender engines in e-commerce are described. It is shown what techniques they use and how the e-businesses utilize recommendations on their websites. 2.1 Non-Personalized Recommendation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.2 Demographic Recommendation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.3 Content-Based Recommendation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.4 Collaborative Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.4.1 User-Based Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.4.2 Item-Based Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.4.3 Model-Based Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.5 Hyb