"So I'm writing a new site to browse Netflix Instant Watch movies"
Since their site sucks so horribly, horribly bad. There are GEMS on there that I literally couldn't figure out how to ever browse to...
I'd love some ideas for what you'd like to see on such a site. What don't you like about Netflix's site? What would you want to keep? What features would you like added. If you have any thoughts, or if you'd like to beta test when I've got something out (about 2 weeks for alpha) please reply below.
btw http://instantwatcher.com is similar in scope to what I would build, although I believe that site could also be massively improved.
1. "RE: So I'm writing a new site to browse Netflix Instant Watch movies" In response to Reply # 0
yeha, i'd definitely be a beta tester. i love netflix, but i have some issues with their web page. it's painful to navigate for so many reasons. as long as the site is quick and it's easy to get from one page to another, it'll be fine.
You know, we could all be reading a book right now.
2. "I haven't used it in quite a while, but from what I remember" In response to Reply # 0
the design didn't allow for a whole lot of titles on the same page simultaneously, and the alphabetization was almost none. I want something that replicates the feeling of looking at a wall of DVDs with a shitload of titles on it that I can see all at once without having to move my head around too much. I think it would be fresh if you could have a virtual shelf of spined dvds that only show the titles and then bring up the covers and descriptions only when you hover over them.
"I think it would be fresh if you could have a virtual shelf of spined dvds that only show the titles and then bring up the covers and descriptions only when you hover over them" _______________________ http://www.last.fm/user/Boogiedwn/
6. "RE: So I'm writing a new site to browse Netflix Instant Watch movies" In response to Reply # 0
What I dislike the most is that the selection seen in the browsing modes is incomplete. I'm better off typing in directors and performers names and seeing what's on IW. The format needs improvement for more convenient navigation, but I'd rather the format stay inconvenient while they just make sure the lists are complete.
Format-wise, in the sortable list view, we should be able to sort by director and performers respectively.
8. "i've only searched on netflix by film name and that's been pretty accura..." In response to Reply # 0
for movies they actually have only thing i had difficulty with is finding a way to view movies i already got from them i had to go thru some hoops and locate movies i rated or some shit that was annoying
Even using this though, I found some cool stuff in the Documentaries section. Browse away.
I'll be improving this little demo a bit by: - Adding more info for each title (actors, director, year of production, etc. No synopsis tho for now) - Making clicks to netflix open in a new window - Automating the process so that this can run *COMPLETELY* by itself once a week or so. For now all I do manually is FTP, but I want a real push-button solution. - Identifying and noting new titles - Hopefully showing only a single link for a series, rather than every episode.
After that, I'll probably abandon this and start work on building out my real platform.
16. "Not searchable. Browsable." In response to Reply # 15 Fri Sep-25-09 06:46 PM by Triptych
Kinda going off what you mentioned earler - the feeling of
just going in and browsing a bunch of titles, allowing one to
grab you. Netflix search works just fine, so if you know what
you're looking for, go there I guess.
Again, this is very much an early proof-of-concept and is not
meant to be even close to feature-complete. By
proof-of-concept I mean something showing that all of my
underlying code is working correctly.
Actually generating that site look like this in code:
def create_files():
igniter = Igniter()
(igniter >> TitleParser(FileIndexProvider())
>> InstantIndex()
>> GenreIndex()
>> GenreWriter())
igniter.run()
Having smaller projects like the one I shared above just help
with directing the project's early development a little bit;
any framework I build should make a site like that trivial. I
have succeeded on that point.
I wrote all that with hopes of explaining why comments like
"Why isn't there any search?" aren't really helpful
quite yet. There will certainly be a search feature on the
final product, but for now I'm much more interested in
differentiating my site from Netflix's, esp in the area of
user interaction.
I loved your suggestion above because it suggests a different
paradigm of finding movies than the "you liked this so
maybe you'll like this" method of finding movies that
Netflix forces you into. I think there are a great many
possibilities in exploring the 17,000+ titles Netflix
currently has for instant watch (and the 130,000+ overall)
11. "95% kicks." In response to Reply # 10 Fri Sep-25-09 03:42 PM by Triptych
Thing I know I'll get out of this: - Learning google app engine - Gaining experience with using REST APIs - Getting more awesomer at Python - Gaining experience in designing/programming/deploying/maintaining a big site with (hopefully) lots of users.
There aren't a ton of financial outs with this one. Basically ad revenue and some sort of partnership with or acquisition by Netflix, both of which are extremely unlikely.
Having fully developed and launched sites is also quite nice on the resume.
17. "just wondering if you realize the instant watch movies change constantly" In response to Reply # 0
i thought about doing a website like this, but the instant watch movies get put up and taken down constantly due to weird contracts with the studios and premium channels. tracking which ones are up and keeping that information accurate and up-to-date would be a beast. your page is dope though.
"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."
18. "RE: just wondering if you realize the instant watch movies change consta..." In response to Reply # 17
Thanks - yeah I'm aware.
The API, while far from perfect, makes that sort of stuff of manageable if you're careful to update frequently, I'm assuming I'll be updating from their database every day.
This is probably the final release I'll do in this style before building a more dynamic site (with search and alladat). I've committed myself to only using this site to find new movies, and I'm adding features pretty quickly. Stand-up and Documentaries have some real gems btw.
In this release: - You can browse all instant-watchable Netflix titles - Individual episodes of television series are not listed. Only series and seasons - Release year, director(s), actor(s), and genres are listed for each title - Clicking a title will take you to the corresponding netflix page - Clicking a genre on a title listing will take you to that genre - Lots of minor visual enhancements - Title information should be much easy to browse. I'm using a variation on the MLA citation format
Still very much taking suggestions. I will also probably put out a real call for beta testers soon (I'll need e-mail addresses). If you know already that you'll be interested feel free to inbox your email address.
24. "Almost completely automatic. " In response to Reply # 20
Basically I type a single command which - downloads data from netflix - parses out just instant watch titles - groups titles by genres - outputs all 480 HTML pages - uploads everything to Hypnagogics.com
the only that's manual is me typing the command, rather than having it scheduled to run once a dy or whatever.
23. "Thanks for the feedback - I was thinking the same thing. " In response to Reply # 21
Rght now I'm working on a way to generate subgenres, so instead of seeing "sports documentaries", "biographical documentaries", etc, you'll just see "Documentaries", and those subcategories will just show up underneath.
But yeah it's ridiculous to have some documentary categories wy at the top and others way at the bottom.
30. "It would be extremely easy for me to expand to all movies." In response to Reply # 29
well, almost extremely easy.
I'm basically filtering all movies into just the instants as an extra step, and removing that step is trivial.
However, I'd need to probably make some efficiency improvements in the code before handling all 130,000 titles at once rather than the 17,000 instant titles I'm handling now. Already the process that builds the site uses up a gig of memory while it's working.
- Queuing will bring up a popup allowing you to add to your instant queue - Watching will pop up a new window directly to the movie - If you're not logged in, both will pop up a prompt to log in. - There are also some styling tweaks in this release that I am not at all in love with.
Think that's it. Next up is probably generating genres/subgenres.
37. "**** Inbox me your email address if you want to help beta test ****" In response to Reply # 0
Pretty soon, within the next two weeks probably, I'll be moving this entire site over to a new platform. Once I do that I'll probably also need to lock down the entire platform and only allow beta testers. If you're intereste
And thanks a lot to those of you who have already sent along email address. I'm setting up my email service for the site right now - once that's done I'll be communicating with you all that way.
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