Evolution of Recommender Systems from Ancient Times to Modern Era: A Survey

Recommender systems were introduced in the mid-1990s to help people select the most suitable product for them from the plethora of options available with them. The idea that led to their development was that we people often rely on the opinions of our peers before trying something new, say it be before buying a smart phone, a laptop, before going for a movie, before going to a new restaurant and even before visiting a doctor. Till date, we have numerous recommender systems developed for various areas, using different recommendation approaches. Yet, there are still a few limitations of recommender systems that need to be worked on. In this paper, we present an overview of recommender systems, the various approaches of recommender systems, the application areas for which various recommender systems have been developed and we also present the limitations of recommender systems.