By Scott Denne
With Netflix Inc. paying out a $1 million prize on Monday to a team of outside researchers that improved its movie recommendation algorithm, two venture-backed start-ups are overjoyed that the “open innovation” model is spreading.
- BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos takes the price for Netflix’s recommendation-improvement contest.
Open innovation “like any big change in business takes time to promulgate,” said David Ritter, the chief technology officer of InnoCentive Inc. “The Netflix prize is a bit of a turning point.”
InnoCentive provides a platform for companies to host challenges seeking outside solutions to problems. Prizes and challenges range from a $5,000 reward from a company seeking creative ways to get men to shave more often to a $1 million prize for finding a biomarker for Lou Gehrig’s disease.
