

Ask HN: Suggesting next actions - crizCraig

It seems that from the first day I used a computer, I've wanted it to suggest I do something based on what I've done already. Whether it be click a button, change a setting, or open something, it seems that some actions could easily be guessed and suggested.<p>Is this pie in the sky or something that seems feasible and useful to the you guys? I know HN has some of the most brilliant people responding to questions and feel that someone has to have thought about this or know of a current project or why there isn't one.
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DanielN
If I'm understanding your question correctly, (applications of machine
learning) there are plenty of examples of this.

See google search suggestions, facebook's news stream, google ad suggestions,
last.fm and pandora's music suggestions, etc.

Read this <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning>, and you too can
know as much about machine learning as I do!

(edit): actually if you read the wiki article you will know an infinite amount
more about machine learning than me.

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marklabedz
Seems like online shopping's suggested items (such as shopping on Amazon)
would fit the bill, or maybe the recently opened menus common on many programs
provide suggested actions (even context-specific menu options). Am I
misunderstanding your question?

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crizCraig
These are domain specific examples of what I mean, yes. However, my vision
would span the entirety of what you do on the web, suggesting for example that
you go to a certain page after visiting a sequence of pages, or click a
certain button after performing some sequence of actions.

I guess that's why I'm asking if it's pie in the sky. Is this too hard of a
problem to generalize? My gut says it isn't. Thanks for your responses.

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marklabedz
I'd agree with your gut. I think the limiting factor is a common/shared
platform for historic data aggregation and dissemination of possible sites to
visit or actions to take for example.

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crizCraig
That's a great point. It's very sensitive data, so I'm not quite sure if
anyone will want to participate. I'm currently building a chrome extension
that will store all of my mouse movements and keystrokes to a database. After
a while, I'll see if I can create some useful suggestions and if so, allow
other people try it out.

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marklabedz
I hope you let us know how that turns out. If its anything like my patterns,
it will include opening Gmail, HN, and Weather.gov in the morning. As an
example, Chrome should figure that out and open them when I start Chrome at
6am every morning.

