Are you on Threads?

@mgirkins hey Mark out of curiosity what does exploration versus exploitation mean . Can you cite some examples

*Max :) @kaushik_mukherjee1 Exploration vs exploitation is a concept useful for describing optimisation problems such as recommending users relevant threads/tweets. Exploration refers to showing a broad range of different content in order to gauge what a user likes. Exploitation refers to showing a user lots of similar content to that which they already like. A good recommendation algorithm will have a nice mix of both but it's difficult as some users prefer to explore more and some like to stick to niche areas exclusively. It's a fascinating topic that I actually wrote my undergraduate dissertation on at university. There are all sorts of problems and trade offs that need to be decided on and recommender systems can easily lead to filter bubbles and polarisation.

@mgirkins firstly apologies Max, these might be my first signs of dyslexia 😅 So threads is more exploratory is what you think it might be. That’s interesting because personalisation apparently has been the buzz word which social media sites try to optimise on. E-commerce companies on the other hand in order to cross sell also do a bunch of collaborative filtering and explore. One of the reasons why I stopped going to Facebook was because it at some point used to show all sorts of random things on my feed. Would that be too much exploration ? Anyways I will engage with threads myself as well, thanks for the explanation

@kaushik_mukherjee1 No worries! Yes I think so, but they will be able to dial that up and down as they please so I expect it will become a bit more exploitative in future once communities have formed more. At the moment I think it's exploratory because you need people seeing lots of different content in order for them to find their niche. Social media sites have been doing this for ages, ever since the news feed switched from showing just the most recent items from your friends. Facebook's recommender system is dreadful for a two reasons in my opinion: - It focuses too heavily on brands and pages rather than your friends - None of your friends are creating content on there anymore so there's nothing really to show. The less there is to show the less likely you are to post things yourself and it's a vicious cycle. Anyway, I hope you enjoy Threads, I'm on there as @mgirkins :)