Amazon.com Knows What You Like…Sorta

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, August 1, 2002

Byline: WHITNEY JOINER

Say you're interested in picking up a copy of The Nanny Diaries, the best-selling tell-all about Park Avenue child-rearing. You look it up on online retail powerhouse Amazon.com, where you notice that Amazon handily recommends a subscription to Time Inc.'s ultra-thick fashion bible In Style.

It's obvious, right? A computer program connects your possible purchase with a related magazine. So hippie favorite The New Moosewood Cookbook is paired with Cooking Light, and Jacqueline Suzann's trashy classic Valley of the Dolls belongs with Cosmo.

But it doesn't seem to work all the time. Why is Rolling Stone suggested for buyers of Three Pillars of Zen? Or Sports Illustrated for Lily Burana's Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America?

"Magazine recommendations are all automated. They're not random," says Amazon.com spokesperson Ling Hong. Hong says it's all about the book's purchasing information: if it's a best seller, the system compares your purchase history with other buyers to make a magazine recommendation. If it's a lesser-known work, the system tries to find related magazines.

But that doesn't seem to answer the Strip City/Sports Illustrated question. "It assumes you're a man interested in sports," says Hong. "The stripper book probably isn't very popular, so the system is just thinking: men, sports magazines."