Learning From the Diner's Experience

I will talk about how we are using data science to help transform OpenTable into a local dining expert who knows you very well, and can help you and others find the best dining experience wherever we travel! This entails a whole slew of tools from natural language processing, recommendation system engineering, sentiment analysis that have to work in synch to make that magical experience happen. One of our main sources of insight are the reviews left by diners on our website. In this talk, I will stress on what we are learning from our rich set of diner reviews, especially using topic modeling as a core tool. I will touch upon various possible applications of this technique that we are currently exploring in both restaurateur facing and diner facing features.