Recommendation Systems in the Real World

For our January Meetup, we're very happy to have two experts in what it takes to build a recommendation system (think Netflix or Amazon) in the messy real world. First, Matt Bryan from WaPo Labs (http://www.wapolabs.com/) (a digital startup embedded in the Washington Post) will introduce the technology, and show how it powers systems that suggest news articles. Then, Bryce Nyeggen from LivingSocial (http://www.livingsocial.com/) will share some pitfalls you can make when designing a recommendation system, and how to get it right the first time.

Agenda:

6:30pm -- Networking and Refreshments 7:00pm -- Introduction 7:15pm -- Presentations and discussion 8:30pm -- Post presentation conversations 8:45pm -- Adjourn for Data Drinks Bios:

Matt Bryan (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/matthew-bryan/26/210/2a4) is a Senior Product Manager for the news aggregation and personalization platform called Trove at WaPo Labs, a small digital innovation group at the Washington Post Company. The Trove Platform powers the Personal Post on washingtonpost.com (http://www.washingtonpost.com), the social news site http://socialreader.com and numerous news-focused iOS and Android apps. Matt has a MS in Mathematics and Statistics from Georgetown University.

Bryce Nyeggen (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bryce-nyeggen/38/594/735) is a Data Scientist at LivingSocial, the local marketplace to buy and share the best things in your city. He focuses on building recommendation systems and creating collaborative filtering algorithms to send customers the most relevant deals, and turning interesting math into fast code. Bryce has a BS in Economics and Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.