Machine Learning in Java - Second Edition

Recommendation Engines with Apache Mahout

Recommendation engines are one of the most applied data science approaches in startups today. There are two principal techniques for building a recommendation system: content-based filtering and collaborative filtering. The content-based algorithm uses the properties of the items to find items with similar properties. Collaborative filtering algorithms take user ratings, or other user behaviors, and make recommendations based on what users with similar behaviors liked or purchased.

In this chapter, we will first explain the basic concepts required to understand recommendation engine principles, and then we will demonstrate how to utilize Apache Mahout's implementation of various algorithms in order ...