Amazon.com thinks I’m a naked ape. Huh.

For those that don’t know, Amazon.com has their Amazon Mobile app for the iPhone.  It’s really great, by the way.  I recommend it highly.  It’s one of the first truly quality apps I’ve seen on the platform in a really long time.

Anyways, it has a recommendation feature.  For those not in the know, you snap a picture of any product you want to remember to check out later.  Taking it one step further than a reminder or follow-up list, Amazon runs your picture through a recognition and serch engine to find the product you snapped.  I’ve tried it on a few legitimate products and it works quite well, as near as I can tell so far.

I was showing this to Marion one evening while we were hanging out at my place.  I’m sitting on the bed without my shirt on, explaining the feature and why I think it’s so damned snazzy. She decides to "recommend" me to myself and snaps a picture with it.  (A very unflattering picture, at that.)

Moments later I get my iPhone back in my hand with a new email.  It’s Amazon telling me they’ve matched my picture.  "Oh?  This ought to be interesting."  And it was.

I go back into the app and hit the recommendation feature, and cancel out of the picture-taking mode to view the list.  There’s the thumbnail of me, with a link to the following book below it: The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal .

What makes this slightly more humorous is the fact that the book cover looks nothing like this picture of me.  Not at all.  Not in the least.

So Amazon saw my picture, thought I was an ape, and made a connection.

Seriously?  I see how it is, Amazon.