I think I know a thing or two about comic books and graphic novels. I mean, it says so right there in the widget in my sidebar. Comic Book Specialist. That’s me.

But every once in a while I stumble across, trip over, or happen upon a great new book or writer. Just yesterday, Andrew Speers over at Old Man Musings introduced me (and, you know, the rest of his readers) to Daisy Kutter.

And then I am happily reminded that there are plenty of gems left in the world for me to discover. I love those moments.

That’s why I’m enthralled with the promise of OurMesh: that I can discover movies, books, movies, and music that I’d like, thanks to people who have tastes similar to mine. (And what refined and sophisticated tastes those people would have! As long as “refined” means “attracted to shiny things.”)

The boys and girls at OurMesh have developed a fancy algorithm that forecasts how well your tastes will match up with other users, based on your respective reviews (think: Netflix ratings) of various media. Literally… forecasts. Compatibility between users is quantified on a temperature scale, where similar people are considered to have warm and sunny conditions. You get the picture.

The algorithm seems to work pretty well. For instance, I have a forecast of negative sixty-two degrees with a 19-year-old Buddhist girl who loves Gray’s Anatomy and The O.C. and hates Star Wars and Buffy. That sounds about right. I’m guessing we also have differing positions on My Little Pony… but that’s outside the scope of the site.

But can OurMesh find me some new, geeky friends? The user “Most Like Me” is some 29-year-old dude (I’m 31) named Dave who’s into some of my favorite stuff like The Matrix, The Office, Rome, The Godfather, and Wedding Crashers and hates Desperate Housewives and The Day After Tomorrow. Hooray for you, Dave!

Unfortunately, Dave, your ridiculous fondness for Bridget Jones’ Diary prevents our forecast from breaking a sunny, eighty-seven degrees. Oh, well. Someday perhaps you’ll come to your senses and conform 100% to my tastes. Don’t give up now. You’re so very close.

So OurMesh’s ability for matching up people with similar tastes is apparent. But what about when I want to discover some new stuff? I’m a consumer. Let me consume.

On the “My Recommendations” page, OurMesh suggests that I’d enjoy Traffic, Scarface, A Fish Called Wanda, Breach, and Erin Brockovitch. Well, yeah, I’ve seen all but one of those, and I enjoyed them. For TV shows, OurMesh recommends Family Guy, The Muppet Show, House, Ren and Stimpy, and Seinfeld. Again, good suggestions for me, but those are pretty mainstream fare that I’ve sampled already. The book recommendations are a bit more interesting–they include rather well-known books, but ones that I haven’t read yet, and have been intending to. (The World According to Garp, Brave New World.)

Based on OurMesh’s recommendations and the other entertainment media titles that I saw on the site, I developed this sense that the library was primarily limited to mainstream, popular releases. While there is a fair share of ‘independent’ content, a search for Life is Beautiful turned up no results. A search on Transformers turned up the Michael Bay movie, but not the animated movie. (A travesty.) And no Stardust or Ender’s Game in book results!

While OurMesh’s library of “media” (i.e., books, movies, music, and TV shows) is already quite considerable–and is apparently still growing–recommendations from its engine will be a lot more interesting when the system has 1) more Long Tail content and 2) more user ratings. Obviously, this is just a symptom of the site’s infancy, and I have no doubt that compatibility matches and product recommendations will get more and more interesting and useful as the site grows.

Also, in the future, as OurMesh gathers more data, I presume that they’ll be able to extrapolate what kind of music I’d like, for example, based on the type of movies or books that I like. Pretty cool potential.

OurMesh is very early in its development. (For example, you’ll notice that it’s easy to find the “Coming Soon!” links and placeholder gibberish text.) But the core functionality is in place, and the potential of the algorithm is obvious. Already it’s fun to find perfect strangers who share your tastes… and I’m looking forward to getting recommendations for somewhat more obscure, Long Tail content. I’d like to see OurMesh help folks like me–who are voracious consumers–find that joy of happening upon undiscovered gems.

Visit Ourmesh.com.

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