The Gold Box is meant to be a way for Amazon to draw your attention to those parts of the site you've never browsed or purchased something from. I never get deals on electronics, movies, music or books because I've bought from those stores before. The idea is that I see something intriguing, like a gas grill, in my Gold Box and then go browsing through the housewares store for other gas grills, because hey, maybe I'm moving into an apartment with a decent patio. From that point on Amazon is in my mind as a place to go to get great deals on movies, music, books, electronics AND housewares.

More interesting to me are the purchase circles in the 'friends and favorites' section. Just yesterday I went through and checked on what Amazon's customers in India, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and China were buying. And Israel and Kuwait.

My recommendations always suck, BTW. That machine may have an understanding of my interests, but no concept of my peeves whatsoever.