Netflix Awards $1M Prize to Developers; Sets New Contest

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 21, 2009 - 7:45am.

New York - Online DVD rental service Netflix (NASD: NFLX) on Monday doled out its $1 million Netflix Prize to a group of engineers and researchers who were able to improve the accuracy of the company's movie recommendation system by 10%. The team "BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos," consisting of three teams that had previously competed against one another, was awarded the $1 million prize offered by the contest, which Netflix launched in 2006.

The winning team is comprised of scientists from Austria, Canada, Israel and the U.S.

Los Gatos, Calif.-based Netflix also on Monday announced its next $1 million challenge.

The Netflix Prize 2 will challenge researchers to improve movie recommendations for members who don't rate movies often or at all on the site -- as opposed to the first contest, where the sample of users had rated 50 or more movie titles.

The new data set provided to contestants will include information about renters' ages, genders, ZIP codes, genre ratings and previously chosen movies.

Netflix did not provide a specific accuracy target for this challenge, and will instead award $500,000 to the team judged to be leading after six months, and an additional $500,000, to the team in the lead at the 18-month mark.

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http://www.netflixprize.com