The Engagement-Diversity Connection: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Spotify
The Engagement-Diversity Connection: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Spotify
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参与度与多样性的联系：来自 Spotify 现场实验的证据
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.3555927
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发表时间：
2020
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Sinan Aral
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
David Holtz;Benjamin Carterette;Praveen Chandar;Zahra Nazari;H. Cramer;Sinan Aral
我们在Spotify上进行了一项大规模随机现场实验，测试个性化推荐对消费多样性的影响。在实验中，对照组和治疗组的用户都得到了播客推荐，唯一的目的是增加播客消费。然而，提供给治疗用户的推荐是基于他们的音乐收听历史进行个性化的，而对照用户则被推荐给他们的人口统计组中最受欢迎的播客。与以前的研究一致，我们发现这种治疗增加了每个用户的播客流的平均数量。然而，我们还发现，这种处理降低了播客流的平均个体水平多样性，增加了播客流的总体多样性，这表明个性化推荐有可能创造出用户内部同质且用户之间多样的消费模式。我们的研究结果提供了一个“多样性权衡”的证据时，优化只为增加消费：虽然个性化的建议增加用户的参与度，他们也会影响用户消费的内容的多样性。消费多样性的这种转变会影响用户留存率和终身价值，也会影响内容生产商的最佳策略。其他分析表明，个性化推荐也会影响用户有机消费的内容。我们认为，这些发现强调了学术界和从业者都需要继续投资于明确考虑向用户推荐内容多样性的个性化方法。
We present results from a large-scale, randomized field experiment on Spotify testing the effect of personalized recommendations on consumption diversity. In the experiment, both control and treatment users were given podcast recommendations, with the sole aim of increasing podcast consumption. However, the recommendations provided to treatment users were personalized based on their music listening history, whereas control users were recommended the most popular podcasts among users in their demographic group. Consistent with previous studies, we find that the treatment increased the average number of podcast streams per user. However, we also find the treatment decreased the average individual-level diversity of podcast streams and increased the aggregate diversity of podcast streams, indicating that personalized recommendations have the potential to create consumption patterns that are homogenous within users and diverse across users. Our results provide evidence of an "engagement-diversity trade-off" when optimizing solely for increased consumption: while personalized recommendations increase user engagement, they also affect the diversity of content that users consume. This shift in consumption diversity can affect user retention and lifetime value, and also impact the optimal strategy for content producers. Additional analyses suggest that exposure to personalized recommendations can also affect the content that users consume organically. We believe these findings highlight the need for both academics and practitioners to continue investing in approaches to personalization that explicitly take into account the diversity of content recommended to users.