Amazon Tracks My Interests

I noticed on the Chalice Blog that if you have an amazon.com wishlist and/or you frequent the site they (whoever the “they” at amazon is) will make this little collection of topics that represent the books you look at most and/or have on your wishlist the most. I thought it was sort of cool. Below are the topics that it tells me I am most into. I can’t say that it is terribly accurate - while I’m sure I do have “gay and lesbian” stuff on my list and that I search for things on this (queer theology/queer theory would be more accurate but probably they don’t have that category) it out of proporation to feminist interest which are more substantial. And why “Moore, Thomas” is in there and tied with “modern” beats me. Obviously they have not developed a perfect algorithm, but oh well. Still fun to distract me on this amazingly hot hot day.

Contemporary Cultural Culture Development & Growth Ecology Economic Policy & Development Economics Ethics & Morality Feminist Feminist Theory Fiction Gay & Lesbian Healthy Human International Literary Criticism Modern Moore, Thomas Picture Books Political Sexuality Spanish Theology United States Women

Ooooo, follow up! Follow up! I was going to look at another book on amazon and my little categories looked all different. So the reason that amazon’s “algorithm” is not perfect for this is because there isn’t one and they just pick random categories that seem to match your interests. That makes it much less fun.