September 2014
Supplement
HBS Case Collection

Netflix: Designing the Netflix Prize (B)

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Wesley M. Cohen, Kynon Ingram, Tushar Kothalkar, Maxim Kuzemchenko, Santosh Malik, Cynthia Meyn, Stephanie Healy Pokrywa and Greta Friar

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:8

Abstract

This supplemental case follows up on the Netflix Prize Contest described in Netflix: Designing the Netflix Prize (A). In the A case, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings must decide how to organize a crowdsourcing contest to improve the algorithms for Netflix's movie recommendation software. The B case follows the contest from the building of the platform in 2006 to the awarding of the highest prize in 2009. The B case also considers the aftermath of the contest, and the issues of successfully implementing a winning idea from a contest.

Keywords

Crowdsourcing; Prizes; Digitization; Algorithms; Recommendation Software; Disruption; Transformation; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Sharing; Applications and Software

Citation

Lakhani, Karim R., Wesley M. Cohen, Kynon Ingram, Tushar Kothalkar, Maxim Kuzemchenko, Santosh Malik, Cynthia Meyn, Stephanie Healy Pokrywa, and Greta Friar. "Netflix: Designing the Netflix Prize (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 615-025, September 2014.