How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood

How many movie genres can you name? 10, 15, maybe 30 if you’re getting creative. Well, streaming service Netflix categorises its content into no less than 76’897 micro-genres, like «Emotional Independent Sports Movies» or «Mind-bending Cult Horror Movies from the 1980s». It has done so by having computers and humans meticulously tag and rate every movie by all sorts of categories. This data is then used to power recommendations or, like in the case of «House of Cards», determine the ingredients of a successful new series. The real takeaway from this entertaining read: It’s the data, stupid!