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Promoting Cold-Start Items in Recommender Systems

Author

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  • Jin-Hu Liu
  • Tao Zhou
  • Zi-Ke Zhang
  • Zimo Yang
  • Chuang Liu
  • Wei-Min Li

Abstract

As one of the major challenges, cold-start problem plagues nearly all recommender systems. In particular, new items will be overlooked, impeding the development of new products online. Given limited resources, how to utilize the knowledge of recommender systems and design efficient marketing strategy for new items is extremely important. In this paper, we convert this ticklish issue into a clear mathematical problem based on a bipartite network representation. Under the most widely used algorithm in real e-commerce recommender systems, the so-called item-based collaborative filtering, we show that to simply push new items to active users is not a good strategy. Interestingly, experiments on real recommender systems indicate that to connect new items with some less active users will statistically yield better performance, namely, these new items will have more chance to appear in other users' recommendation lists. Further analysis suggests that the disassortative nature of recommender systems contributes to such observation. In a word, getting in-depth understanding on recommender systems could pave the way for the owners to popularize their cold-start products with low costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Jin-Hu Liu & Tao Zhou & Zi-Ke Zhang & Zimo Yang & Chuang Liu & Wei-Min Li, 2014. "Promoting Cold-Start Items in Recommender Systems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-13, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0113457
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0113457
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Ling-Jiao & Zhang, Zi-Ke & Liu, Jin-Hu & Gao, Jian & Zhou, Tao, 2017. "A vertex similarity index for better personalized recommendation," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 466(C), pages 607-615.
    2. Grzegorz Chodak, 2020. "The problem of shelf-warmers in electronic commerce: a proposed solution," Information Systems and e-Business Management, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 259-280, June.
    3. Zhu, Xuzhen & Tian, Hui & Zhang, Tianqiao, 2018. "Symmetrical information filtering via punishing superfluous diffusion," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 508(C), pages 1-9.
    4. Ma, Wenping & Feng, Xiang & Wang, Shanfeng & Gong, Maoguo, 2016. "Personalized recommendation based on heat bidirectional transfer," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 444(C), pages 713-721.
    5. An, Ya-Hui & Dong, Qiang & Sun, Chong-Jing & Nie, Da-Cheng & Fu, Yan, 2016. "Diffusion-like recommendation with enhanced similarity of objects," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 461(C), pages 708-715.
    6. Liu, Jin-Hu & Zhu, Yu-Xiao & Zhou, Tao, 2016. "Improving personalized link prediction by hybrid diffusion," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 447(C), pages 199-207.
    7. Tobias Kretschmer & Christian Peukert, 2020. "Video Killed the Radio Star? Online Music Videos and Recorded Music Sales," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 776-800, September.
    8. Christian Peukert, 2019. "The next wave of digital technological change and the cultural industries," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 43(2), pages 189-210, June.
    9. Zhang, Shujuan & Jin, Zhen & Zhang, Juan, 2016. "The dynamical modeling and simulation analysis of the recommendation on the user–movie network," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 463(C), pages 310-319.
    10. Wang, Ximeng & Liu, Yun & Xiong, Fei, 2016. "Improved personalized recommendation based on a similarity network," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 456(C), pages 271-280.

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