In October 2006, Netflix announced it would give 1 million dollars to whomever created a movie-recommending algorithm 10 percent better than its own, opening its database in the process. Over 8,000 teams are competing for the prize: University of Toronto, Budapest University, AT&T labs, Princeton University, University of Toronto are taking part.

• Gavin Potter AKA “Just a guy in a garage”, a British psychologist and his high school senior daughter are currently the winning entrants.

• Potter claims the key to his success is the rest of the mathematicians and statisticians in the contest suffer from groupthink. Their models do not take into account human behavior.

• Netflix has enjoyed tremendous press regarding the contest and already improved its recommendation service 8.5%.