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One of the problems with the "viewed" relationship is that it can be  
easily be gamed with just clicks -- whether the clicks are from a  
programmed bot or a group of human clickers.  With the "bought"  
relationship you need to cough up some money, so gaming becomes  
expensive and probably avoided!

For a while, before the recent US election, you would see a funny  
dynamic with some political books on Amazon.  It was first seen with  
right-wing books[left wing bloggers pointed this out].  High on their  
list of "recently viewed" would be left wing books, where you would  
expect other right wing or non-political books.  This happened with  
newly released left wing books because they would not have as much  
historic data as an older book -- less historic data, easier to  
game.  I don't know what the point of that was -- maybe one side was  
trying to show "defection" from the other side???  This dynamic  
disappeared as historic data accumulated for the books on the  
original "viewed" list.

Valdis


On Dec 31, 2006, at 2:05 PM, Bill.Richards wrote:

>    */"People who viewed this item also viewed..."/*
>

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