I don't feel like anyone has gotten recommendations right, even though one seemingly obvious approach has not been tried by anyone: allow ratings of favorite works across all media: movies, tv shows, books, music, radio programs, youtube videos. Make a very easy, efficient UI to add ratings. This way you will avoid superficial matches: if I just watched an excellent steampunk cartoon, let's offer a zillion of throwaway crap steampunk. It's not the steampunk part that I liked, it's that it was amazingly done.<p>If I was a huge fan of books, movies, music, youtube picks of another user, it may be there is a deeper connection of the kind of quality we are both looking for, and so his or her recommendations would be highly relevant.