Google Adds Movie Ratings, Times, Reviews

Mike Skweir writes " I was going to take my daughter to the movies this afternoon and I wanted to find out more about the movie 'Kicking & Screaming'... so I Googled it. To my surprise the following response occurred . When I followed the link, it actually gave me several reviews, movie ratings and the ability to search for a theatre in my area." Once you've entered your zip code, it will also tell you what movies are playing in your area.

Comments

another google innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

What I wonder is where Google gets its ratings from, most movie titles always give you results to the IMDB where reviews can be found anyway...

Re:another google innovation

[zetasmack]

google knows all. do not question.

Re:another google innovation

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

More appropriately, can Google host a page that it cannot cache?

Re:another google innovation

[ElectricBrain]

Too bad it doesnt work for www.google.ca :(

Next?

[karthik_r085]

Next feature might be Music/Concert shows.

Re:Next?

[Omniscientist]

Because I would frequent a feature allowing me to search "Music/Concert shows", I have to say that is an excellent idea. But why do you say that might be a feature next, or anytime soon at all?

I feel that if Google did such a thing, they would have to charge (promoter fees, etc), or they would simply show you to the concert places' websites. Either way, someone has to pay to advertise...and given Google's fame, that would be quite a profitable avenue for them to pursue.

Sounds Handy...

[paulschroeder]

but will it let us know which ones to avoid?

Re:Sounds Handy...

[Agret]

It really works!

Such a Great Way to Market

[PogieMT]

Google's true genius might be the way they add new features...and let it all get advertised by users. Instead of the Yahoo model of cluttering up the main page so much that is unusable, Google just adds a feature--and people find out when they try it, or it ends up on a site like Slashdot

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[Col. Klink (retired)]

> or it ends up on a site like Slashdot

Yeah, but how often does *that* happen?

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[ampmouse]

Actualy, it happens very often, usualy more then once. A article about the same topic was posted just about three months ago...

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[fm6]

It is true that viral marketing is very effective. But I don't think they're deliberately trying to do that. It's just that their haphazard product development process makes a proper "feature launch" impossible!

It's curious how Google repeatedly stumbles into extreme success. Early on, they decided to go with low-key text-based ads, not because they thought they'd be more successful than banner ads, but because the people making the decision hated pages with banner ads. We all know how that turned out -- it's the main reason Google turned a profit as early as it did.

Jeez, as I'm typing this there is this really annoying animated New Egg banner at the top of my Slashdot window. Some people never learn!

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[KillerCow]

Google's true genius might be the way they add new features...and let it all get advertised by users. Instead of the Yahoo model of cluttering up the main page so much that is unusable, Google just adds a feature--and people find out when they try it, or it ends up on a site like Slashdot

You mean, a shill or marketoid at google "discovers" it and starts sending it around.

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[Kaenneth]

As opposed to people who get tons of money from Microsoft; such as SCO.

Microsoft has as many good ideas as Google; unfortunetly they put money first.

Sorry you couldn't figure out the puzzles to send an application to Google Corp.

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[Jedi Alec]

but because the people making the decision hated pages with banner ads.

And there you have it. Right now, the folks making the decisions are folks that think like us. Google still has a really geeky aura surrouding it. Who knows, some day the marketing droids might take over and it's back to the drawing board, but until then...

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[lysergic.acid]

exactly. the best kind of marketing is no marketing. instead of wasting money on marketing and advertising, they spend money on R&D to come up with better products and services.

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[tomofengland]

Get yourself the adblock extension for firefox and bid those annoying banners a final farewell

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[fm6]

And there you have it. Right now, the folks making the decisions are folks that think like us.

Sorry, but that's standard Geek bigotry. Most web surfers are not "people like us". Most people seem to be pretty tolerant of obnoxious advertising, and the 900 million people who surf the web these days are more representative of society at large, not Geek culture. So it's a little suprising that obnoxious ads are less effective online they they are in other media.

My theory is this: people are so inundated with advertising that they need a mechanism to filter them out, to keep from getting distracted to death. Most people seem to be adept and creating little cognitive filters to eliminate distraction. (Geeks, by and large, seem to be pretty poor at this -- I've often wondered if there isn't some neurological difference between Geeks and "normal" people.) So most people litterally don't see most of the ads that are thrown at them every day.

But by trying to make their ads less obnoxious, Google removed all the visual cues that these cognitive filters rely on. Which is why market research indicates that most people don't perceive Google ads as ads, even though they're clearly labeled as such! In other words, Google found a way to get past people's ant-ad wetware -- and found it purely by accident.

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[NardofDoom]

Jeez, as I'm typing this there is this really annoying animated New Egg banner at the top of my Slashdot window. Some people never learn!

You're right. Some people never learn.

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[kmarius]

Yahoo has a lighter version if you're just interested in search.

http://search.yahoo.com/

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[Lord_Dweomer]

"Who knows, some day the marketing droids might take over and it's back to the drawing board, but until then..."

Oh come off it already. When the fuck will Slashdotters realize that just like in EVERY OTHER FUCKING INDUSTRY there are good professionals, and bad professionals.

Marketing is the same as any other industry. Sure, you have your sleazy people who will do whatever they can to get eyeballs and a buck, but then you have your talented people who know exactly what they're doing, who don't want to alienate and annoy their audience, and who actually make things entertaining and useful.

If you think Google's marketing tactics are solely because of its founders, give me some of what you're smoking. Google hires the best and brightest and that goes just as much for their marketing department as it does for their developers. I know its a paradigm-shattering thought to consider, but maybe, just maybe, Google has some GOOD marketing people who know how to do things the right way.

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[Squonk01]

And they add a humorous throwaway line at the bottom of the page:

The selection and placement of reviews on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. No movie critics were harmed or even used in the making of this page.

without making a big deal of their cleverness.

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[metallidrone]

Perhaps it's part of the same effect where people do not really notice programs/operating systems crashing: they don't see there being any other way (or they don't care enough to seek out those ways). Computer geeks are aware of what software is capable of.

To apply this axiom to online ads, computer geeks are aware enough to know that there are ways to not see ads (like ad blockers, etc.), focus their abilities on achieving those goals, and thus get annoyed when they see ads (e.g., if it defeats their filtering or if they're using a public computer).

Non-computer-geeks, on the other hand, see ads as an uncontrollable reality and thus focus their abilities on ignoring them and setting up mental blocks.

To draw a strained analogy, the computer geeks are "clean" people who focus their efforts on cleaning and disinfecting their environment, so they never encounter diseases and thus never build immunities to them. Others, who experience "unclean" environments and occasionally get diseases, have stronger immune systems and thus the ability to cope with diseases when they get them (compare that to the "clean" people who will be much worsely affected if they ever do encounter a disease).

Another strained comparison: cultures living cities (with mostly domesticated animals) are easily aggravated by others' noisy pets, since they know that it's easy to silence those noises (by complaining to the owner, complaining to the city/law, etc). Compare that to living in a jungle environment, where the only way to handle the noises is to either build sound-proof houses or kill the noisy animals (not always possible).

I've noticed similar effects with TV compared to my own pre-DVR history: I get really annoyed when seeing ads on non-DVRed TV because I know the ads can theoretically be skipped, and I've gotten used to not having to act on my own ignore them (e.g., take bathroom breaks, make a sandwich, etc.).

As an added thought, computer geeks (especially the generation that got into the web in its early life in the 90s) remember that ads were not naturally a part of the web, but rather were added later in its life, so they know what a web without ads is like.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts and observations, based purely on speculation.

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[bergeron76]

My theory is this: people are so inundated with advertising that they need a mechanism to filter them out, to keep from getting distracted to death. Most people seem to be adept and creating little cognitive filters to eliminate distraction. (Geeks, by and large, seem to be pretty poor at this -- I've often wondered if there isn't some neurological difference between Geeks and "normal" people.)

I tend to think that it's more than Geeks are precision based by nature. When they write software, the slightest imperfection is unacceptable. Hell, even the languages themselves require precision syntax (in general). If a period or comma is in the wrong place in code, the compiler will [probably] bail.

I also think this is why geeks aren't as glib in unfamiliar social situations. They over-analyze (byproduct of precision based thinking) and try to interject comments into a social environment in a tactical way; rather than a free flowing natural way.

It's just a theory.

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[fm6]

Yeah, I just did that, and even as I write, there's a big blue-and-silver F on the top of my window. I'd seen the Adblock extension before, when I was browsing the various (very long!) lists of Firefox extensions. It didn't strike me as particularly useful so I didn't bother to install it. I guess I mostly don't mind animated ads, but when you're trying to write a thoughful Slashdot post, having a sily animation on your screen is really headache inducing. I suspect that Slashdot will be the only site I totally forbid to give Flash animations.

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[Shadowlore]

> or it ends up on a site like Slashdot

Yeah, but how often does *that* happen?

Well if it happens once, it is bound to happen again a few days later.

*ducks*

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

[PabloHoffman]

They do publish all these things in their official blog though. Subscribe to it if you want to know earlier about newborn services, instead of waiting for some user advertisement to hit you.

Oh, isn't that old?

[presroi]

I remember on spotting this feature (which I am unable to use since google decided only to support the other side of the bath tub) some month ago.

I might add that there is some (currently unused) synergy to http://video.google.com/ . There is no reason not to extend google video to movie texts.

Re:Oh, isn't that old?

[ErichTheWebGuy]

Absolutely. In fact, I remember Googling the movie '50 First Dates' and being shocked at the result (note that there was no video synergy). That was when said movie first came out, so that can provide some reference point. There is also synergy with Google maps, as I can roll a map of the nearest theater, as well as get directions on how to get there.

Re:Oh, isn't that old?

[ErichTheWebGuy]

EDIT: There was no synergy with Google maps back then, I only had reviews and theater locations.

Re:Oh, isn't that old?

[presroi]

Okay, so if you live in the New York, you might actually try the following:

Use google to find a movie that might be worth the money you will be spending.
Use google to find a movie theatre that has the movie on schedule.
Use google's orkut or google's newly aquired dodgeball to find someone to join your movie evening.
Use google ride to order a cab to the movie theatre.
Use google groups to discuss the result of the evening.

So, if google was smart, they would enhance their APIs to encourage people to combine different google applications. My first attempt would be something like a google timewaster/blinddate/"hey, I'm new in this town, are there real people around?"/... Or is this something labs.google.com will provide in the next six months? and so on... I'm tired of this "what if google did a, b, c" I would like to do it myself.

Re:Oh, isn't that old?

[generic-man]

How is Google Ride any better than, say, going outside and hailing a cab? New Yorkers don't have to reserve cabs or anything... there's plenty to go around.

Re:Oh, isn't that old?

[presroi]

Most Taxi drivers I know have a good relationship with Murphy and his set of laws.

hmmmm

[benna]

This sounds familiar.

Re:hmmmm

[Wyatt Earp]

Indeed, this has been a feature of Google for months, I know I used it in March.

Re:hmmmm

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Yup, google bootlicking and a dupe all rolled into one. Time to join the jihad.

Re:hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent! Time to get some Karma....

"It's been interesting over the last couple of months to see the new google services and how well they integrate with each other.

for instance, I use google local and at some point it squirreled away a cookie of my location. This information is used by google maps and also the movie reviews.

when I type movie: Hotel Rwanda it brings me to a listing of show times and links in my town. Another click on "7:40" brings me to the another site (movietickets.com, fandago.com, etc) where I can order a ticket. The point is: two clicks to getting movie tickets. Why would I go to any other site at this point? it's so easy with google, especially when I type it into the built in toolbar on my browser.

At this point it seems like any horizontal web app is a possible target for google"

"Just use booble!!!
You can get all sorts of information on movies from Booble. http://www.booble.com/"
(Note, not safe for work)

"Just wait for the next iteration...

And I quote, "Popcorn and a date to snuggle up with are up to you. For now."

Here's hoping for the best with all of their future plans!"

Re:hmmmm

[Jugalator]

Yes, I think the only thing we're seeing now is a minor revision to the service, among others dropping the required "movie:" to get the movie results.

Another feature of the search

[whoever57]

Try this search, or to put it into the search box: "movie:movie". Enter your zip code for a full listing of locally showing movies.

Data collection...

[orion88]

I just wonder what they're doing with all of this data. Between zip code and links visited, you could assemble some pretty interesting demographics.

-Ben

Re:Data collection...

[Adult film producer]

thats why it's a good idea to delete your google cookie at least once a week. But 99% of people won't do that, in the meantime google will know more about you in 5 years than your wife/family/dog ever will.

How many of those impulse searches you've made on google will tell your friends about ? :)

Re:Rate web pages

[presroi]

This feature exists. It is implemented in the google toolbar (look for two smileys). At least I remember it in Version 1.something.

Also, you can search by plot!!!

[E IS mC(Square)]

Even if you dont remember the movie name, you can try searching for plot/key phrases!!

e.g. searching for Future world (or google "movies: future world") comes up with a decent list, with "Twelve Monkeys" on 1st and "Minority Report" as second!

Re:Also, you can search by plot!!!

[craXORjack]

Even if you dont remember the movie name, you can try searching for plot/key phrases!!

Unless you are searching for a porno flick in which case you'll have to remember the name.

Re:Also, you can search by plot!!!

[roger6106]

It's "movie:" not "movies:" I tried this and it works. I looked at the reviews and was surprised to see this on the bottom of the page: "The selection and placement of reviews on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. No movie critics were harmed or even used in the making of this page." Good to see that they still have a sense of humor.

Google

[wcitechnologies]

If google starts issuing IDs for each user, I wouldn't be suprised if it became more important than a social security number.

Re:Google

[bnitsua]

your google id WILL be your social security number. google's going to acquire the social security administration next.

Re:Google

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

they already did.

its called Gmail.

Bye Bye Fandango

[Salis]

Say Good Bye to Mr. Fandango....

The only thing it does now is sell tickets, but who really wants to buy movie tickets online?

Onward Google, onward! Search ... Everything.

Re:Bye Bye Fandango

[Chiasmus_]

but who really wants to buy movie tickets online?

I would. Walking right past the line is actually pretty nice. But I don't want to pay a dollar over box office for the privilege. Since Fandango is *more* efficient than paying teenagers six bucks an hour to hand out tickets from those little bulletproof booths, it should cost *less*.

Weird how that concept has been lost on the big chains so far.

Re:Bye Bye Fandango

[arkhan_jg]

Walking right past the line is actually pretty nice. But I don't want to pay a dollar over box office for the privilege. Since Fandango is *more* efficient than paying teenagers six bucks an hour to hand out tickets from those little bulletproof booths, it should cost *less*.

I think you've missed the reason; it's because you get to walk right past the line that you pay a dollar over box office. Efficiency has nothing to do with it, they do the same with telephone advance booking here. Because you get to guarantee your seat in advance without having to queue up in the rain, they figure you will be willing to pay more for the priviledge and convenience. Many people are. Is it fair? No. Market forces at work.

Re:Bye Bye Fandango

[zeromemory]

Walking right past the line is actually pretty nice.

If you're just concerned about walking past the lines, try and see if your local theatre has one of the automated consoles. Just choose the tickets you want, swipe your credit card, and -- presto! -- instantly printed tickets with no service charge.

At the Sony Metreon in San Francisco, practically nobody uses the consoles, so there's never a line.

Re:Bye Bye Fandango

[knoebelsPT]

If you give up your personal info AMC lets you buy tickets at cost. You also get a free small popcorn after 8 movies. Yay.

Re:Bye Bye Fandango

[houghi]

But I don't want to pay a dollar over box office for the privilege.

Than don't. Stand at the booth, because in the end they will make more money that way. Say you want to go to the movies with some friends and the movie you wanted to see is either sold out, or does not play anymore. What do you do? You watch another on. Hey preso 40 bucks.

If you are at home and surf it, you might decide to stay at home and wacth some rerun, or go to the pub or whatever your agegroup do when they are together and NOT at the movies.

Re:Rate web pages

[Chiasmus_]

They should allow people to rate and review websites. That would make a little more sense, don't you think? Plus, it would be original.

Considering that probably Google's prime concern is creating a tamper-proof search system, I don't think they'd invite a system that practically screamed "Please tamper with our rating system by posting rave reviews for your brochure site for herbal Viagra."

...unless, of course, the reviews were presented in such a way that they didn't affect which web sites people decided to click on - in which case the whole rating system would be little more than a waste of resources.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Rate web pages

[Chiasmus_]

They could ask you what type of search you are doing - technical research, entertainment, etc. and sort your results accordingly.

And in doing so, Google would create a brand new business model:

1. Create a website that advertises having pictures of Britney Spears and Natalie Portman in compromising positions and completely uninhibited, but of course contains only seven thousand banner ads.
2. Create hundreds of spambots to report to Google that your website is *the best* place to find quality research on apache, linux, lemmings, the San Francisco earthquake, herpes simplex B, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Calvinism, and navel lint.
3. Profit (see, that time step two existed)

Yahoo has the same feature

[tonyquan]

and it works very similarly...here's the result for the same movie: http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=FP-pull-web-t&p= kicking+screaming

Re:Yahoo has the same feature

[carlivar]

But you forgot that when Google copies Yahoo it's an awesome new Google feature. When Yahoo copies Google they are just pathetic imitators.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Google SMS

[CyberDave]

I know Google SMS has the ability to retrieve movie showtimes for the current day in your area, though I haven't yet found a way to get future movie times (say, what opens tomorrow) through Google SMS (read: I've been too lazy to go read the help and find out).

I'm rather surprised that it sounds like Google SMS got something before the mainstream Google web did.

Still, very cool. I *heart* Google.

Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap.

[Chiasmus_]

I see a story mentioning a new feature of Google. I don't see an endorsement for the corporation.

Unless you're very new here, you're probably aware that Slashdot also mentions it whenever Microsoft announces a new feature.

Unless you're very new here, you're also probably aware that Slashdot does not officially endorse Microsoft (although, you know, nearly every single poster thinks that company is just the best thing since open source sliced bread).

Inconsistent Behaviour

[osewa77]

Typing "Kicking and Screaming" indeed brings out the movie review link, but typing another movie (e.g. 'Closer') does not, unless you include the "movie:" operator (that is, search for "movie:Closer").

I wonder why this is so but, oh well, Google is all-wise!

Re:Inconsistent Behaviour

[Chiasmus_]

I wonder why this is so but, oh well, Google is all-wise!

It appears that Google is only reporting movies that are currently playing in theaters.

If you're really that set on making sure they're giving proper respect to Natalie Portman, you might want to try this link.

Re:Inconsistent Behaviour

[LetterJ]

It's definitely not just current movies. I just searched for the movie I'm watching right now and it brings back the right result from 1995. Search for Desperado (the prequel to Once Upon a Time in Mexico).

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=movie%3 A+ Desperado&btnG=Search

Re:Inconsistent Behaviour

[daviddennis]

Oddly enough, neither "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" nor "movie:Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" works, even though that movie is, to my knowledge, still playing.

I like the interface a lot more than rottentomatoes.com, which does the same thing. It's very clean and easy to read.

D

Re:Inconsistent Behaviour

[That's Unpossible!]

You have to spell it correctly. ;-)

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

underwhelmed.

[linoleo]

Until it comes up with this I'll stick with IMDB, thank you. Reviews for blockbusters are a dime a dozen, and showtimes on another continent do nothing for me.

Re:Rate web pages

[Chiasmus_]

I.E. at the very least, have one of those "type the word in the graphic" things.

On a tangential note, the war between spambots to read those things and websites to obfuscate them is starting to lead to a lot of websites that are asking me to find the hideously distorted numbers in completely unintelligible scribble.

Eventually, as spambots get smarter and smarter, they're going to start having to retain the services of that guy who draws "Where's Waldo": "There are six numbers hiding in the magical forest. Can you find them all?"

We need an Ask Slashdot...

[NotQuiteReal]

Has anyone ever bought anything online because of an online (placed, pop-up, ad-sense, or otherwise "targeted") ad?

Sure, I have purchased lots of stuff online, but I can't say that any content sponsering ad has ever "grabbed" me. Of course, as far as I know, traditional media ads don't affect me either, but I understand research shows that they "work".

Is it the same with online ads - has the net fallen into being the same as traditional media, with the same statistical influence of ad copy on the masses?

Re:We need an Ask Slashdot...

[Chiasmus_]

Of course, as far as I know, traditional media ads don't affect me either, but I understand research shows that they "work".

You know, I wouldn't say I respond directly to commercials; that is to say, I don't see an ad for Pizza Hut and reach for the phone.

But I will say this: if I'm on vacation, and I see a Pizza Hut sitting next to something called Big Antonio's Pizza... I'll probably pick door #1.

And that's probably the advertising at work.

Re:We need an Ask Slashdot...

[patio11]

I downloaded the Puzzle Pirates demo, which lead directly to a $25 sale two days later, after seeing an ad for it on Penny Arcade. I also bought a Dell after seeing they were having a sale, but I had been planning to buy a Dell for a while and that just made my choice of weekend for the purchase.

Re:We need an Ask Slashdot...

[i wanted another nam]

Maybe I'm just an anti American rebel, but I'd go for the local place. 9 times out of 10, a local place is better at everything they do.

New Competition

[fullcircleflight]

Websites like MetaCritic and RottonTomatoes now have a new mega-competitor. I bet they aren't too happy with this news.

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[account_deleted]

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This is news?

[mavantix]

Uh, the Google movie/local search has been working for months! Slashdot link from Feb 23rd here In fact, the IMDB link has been there from the start. It amazes me when some parent finds out about Google's "new" 3 month old feature, they think it's new, and news worthy to boot. Whoopty do, next headline: "New feature, Google aggregates data!!" No kidding? As usual, good ol' /. dupe checking works it's magic! :)

Not to dis Google or anything, but since when is every minuscule innovation on web based portals revolutionary? Endless "betas" and rapid cash burns to develop the next biggest thing is what turned the dot-com boom into a bust. Is Google next? Nah, there's no competition in the search engine market. Hehe.

Sure, people love Google, I love Google, but this stuff is something Yahoo has been doing for 10 years and people are atingle over it like its new technology!? Innovation only leads to more complex interfaces, and the simplicity of Google's very nature will only become bulkier and bloated the more of this "crap" they add. What, links to outside review services just weren't enough? Creature Feep if you ask me.

Re:Bought reviews

[YowzaTheYuzzum]

How many of the H2G2 reviews were bought? I saw the movie this afternoon and can't see how anyone at Yahoo! or wherever could give it an 'A' (yet there were several such reviews).

I completely agree... how could anyone possibly have a different opinion to you?

Good Timing

[Fletch]

It was just this afternoon that some co-workers and I were discussing how awful Slashdot has gotten about posting ad "stories" and dupes, and now here's another duplicate story.

I understand that some dupes slip through because certain topics can be hard to search for, but with the first Google movies story showing up as the topmost search result for "Google movies," how is it even possible not to find that this story was already posted?

I had read Slashdot almost daily for years, and subscribed for months. These days, thanks to the drastic downtown in quality, I'm down to visiting just a few times a week, and haven't added to my subscription in a year.

Re:Good Timing

[jamie]

discussing how awful Slashdot has gotten about posting ad "stories"

You were discussing something that's never happened? Interesting.

Re:Good Timing

[Fletch]

I never said "paid" ad stories, and didn't mean to imply it. Sorry.

This is a pretty good example of what I was talking about. I don't think anyone can argue that there's any real news in that story. It's just some guy driving traffic to his new site.

I'm glad to see someone over there is reading comments like mine, anyhow.

Re:Good Timing

[jamie]

Of course that's news; it's interesting to anyone who's installed Tiger and wants to know what widgets are available. Why anyone would think Slashdot shouldn't run that is beyond me.

If I searched "Soul Plane"

[TheOtherAgentM]

...would it come up with an apology too?

Too bad their information is incomplete

[L.Bob.Rife]

I would expect a company like google to use Cinema Source since they are the #1 database clearinghouse of movietime information, that nearly every cinema in America communicates with.

Unfortunately, they seem to be using some other service which has incomplete records and doesn't even list some of my local theaters.

Compare for yourself by doing a search on moviefone or yahoo, and then check google.

Re:Too bad their information is incomplete

[generic-man]

Google doesn't pay for content. Just look at how awful Google Maps is when you search for anything by keyword. If they licensed real Yellow Pages data, as they did in the UK, you would get better results.

Google: Blindly Trusting the Web since 1998.

focused searches

[Wabbit Wabbit]

there are lots of targeted searches you can do on google via keywords, including focusing on scholarly/research papers and articles.

The complete list of keywords and their syntax is here.

showtimes

[ph4s3]

For your google search, use: movie: ZIPCode and it comes up with show times in your area. Pretty nifty and hella quicker than navigating through the garbage on yahoo's movie site.

I know there's a lot of google love here at /., but I think they deserve it. They either come up with something first or they come to the party late but do it better than anyone else.

Re:showtimes

[carlivar]

For your google search, use: movie: ZIPCode and it comes up with show times in your area. Pretty nifty and hella quicker than navigating through the garbage on yahoo's movie site.

The ignorance / anti-Yahoo bias here is astounding. Searching for "movie 91506" and such works on Yahoo as well. And if you don't want clutter, no problem.

Re:Rate web pages

[HyperChicken]

Furl and like services let users rate web pages and comment on them. Original? Ha.

Google does it again

[portwojc]

That is just great. Moviefone doesn't list one theatre in my area. I always have to go to that movie threatre companies page to see it's listings.

So long AOL. Competition is a good thing.

Re:Rate web pages

[mike518]

not a bad idea, just it would add a bunch of extra space needed for the review icons or text, and quite frankly i like the simplicity of google, thats what made it great in the first place, right?

little things like the movie reviews, basic calculator and answers to simple questions like "population of country X" are all great, but anything more -- esspecially in the way of code for EVERY web page would both be bulky and in my opinion detracting from the original concept of simplicity.

Does it have movie prices?

[rolfwind]

One feature I miss out on movie sites that have local listing times is comparative pricing. Everything else on the net has it, it seem, why not websites that accept theatre listings?

My Regal Cinema down the street dropped the matinee times from any movie starting before 5pm to 3pm and upped the price from 5.50 to 7.00 - the regular price from 8.00 to 9.25 while some theatres down the street (older) are down to 4.50 regular - I'd like to know these things w/o checking out every stupid theatre in the area.

Perhaps I'm just sour because I got suckered into seeing House of Wax for ~9 just recently.

Dupe!

[jacen_sunstrider]

You know, I think the whole dupe thing has been duplicated far more many times than was needed. Therefore, I stricken your comment a dupe.

Eh?

[teknokracy]

I don't understand why some of these features don't make it to Google Canada as well. I know the US is the US, but Canada isnt that much different (same movie premieres, same movies, etc etc etc) So why not have a simple version of this on Google.ca, maybe it will link up with the TWO (yes, count them) movie chains in Canada and tell us the showtimes :D

Re:Eh?

[RasputinAXP]

Yeah, Google! Extend your reach to the 51st State!

Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap.

[orion88]

How do you rank if you had nothing to go on

How would any search engine work with nothing to go on? What would you search?

-Ben

Re:Rate web pages

[Mister Impressive]

They should at least allow users to rate the review itself, those with lesser ratings pushed down the list, and those rated higher up. I'd imagine you'd vote based on the review after seeing the movie of course...

Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I still use Yahoo maps, but the difference is that Google's version is a lot less cluttered, less confusing and easier to use. In short, they are doing the same thing everyone else is doing, but better. The only reason I don't use Google maps is they didn't have direction finding last I checked.

Google is doing a lot of stuff that is already done by other companies, but with a better look, more sensible layout and overall better ease of use.

This is, afterall, my opinion, but it seems to be similar to those elsewhere in this forum.

I just hope that they continue to improve everything they've already established as well, and they don't overextend themselves.

Answers:

[PotatoHead]

1. Google is a totally great Linux / OSS / GPL success story. There is money to be made building great things for people to use on the OSS software stack.

2. I, for one am interested in new Google projects. Getting the most use out of an already very useful service is the powergeek thing to do. Heck, we are always talking about new things to do with hardware, software, etc... I don't see Google being any different.

2a. Where are the other cool projects coming from? MSN, Yahoo? (Well ok maybe the music thing, but we talked about that already.) Google is innovating in a big way, bringing lots of value to the net along for the ride. They have advanced the state of the art in web interfaces, scaleable file-systems, and search several times. Can't really say that about the others now can you?

3. Savvy? Are you sure you are reading the right site? The things that Google does are *hard*. --really hard. And they do it on OSS to boot! Remember #1, that is news for nerds and it is stuff that matters.

Re:Answers:

[carlivar]

Where are the other cool projects coming from? MSN, Yahoo?

Yes, Yahoo. Let's see...

Creative Commons searches.
Better image searches.
Traffic overlays on maps.
The same exact movie results feature that's being reported here.
Better search API.

More, that's just off the top of my head.

Re:Rate web pages

[Adrilla]

You don't actually expect me to give up my social security, driver's license, or any other personal number to google just so I can vote on whether a site is good or not. I like google, they have a good service, but I don't like them enough to give up that info just to move a website up 3 spots in rank.

Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap.

[mieses]

google maps has directions, and satellite views, and local search results..

Re:Rate web pages

[jacksonj04]

What you're suggesting is effectively M2ing the film. You'd be moderating someone's opinion.

really?!

[nilbog]

I even heard you can do web searches on google now too!

This was covered on slashdot in like, 1970 when it first happened...

That is *such* a google rip-off.

[Truth_Quark]

Yahoo are doing good work of late, and their Images search leaves Google for dead ... but...
Did they have to do the little search box in the exact same colour and placement as the google search button, and colour the "search" button exactly the same as the google search button, with the same colour border popping up on mouseover?

That's just scarey.

But IP is all crap and we should respect companies that knock each other off like that.

Re:That is *such* a google rip-off.

[carlivar]

Yeah agreed, Yahoo got a little carried away cloning Google there. Simplicity can be done with a bit of originality too.

But does it have a link to the torrent file?

[surfcow]

That would save me at least 4 mouse clicks.

=brian

=cows are strangely attracted to me=

But Google News is a Beta?

[The Mutant]

Earlier on /. I'd read the reason Google News still carried the Beta label was according to the TOS of most (if not all) news providers, distribution for commerical use was prohibited.

This clearly leverages off Google News, so somethings not making sense. There isn't a Beta label on Google Reviews even though it sources from their news feed. How can they use these reviews without a beta label, if the remainder of the newspaper requires it? How long before these reviews start to carry text ads? And does this mean the Beta label will be dropped off Google News as well?

In any case, this wouldn't be much use to me as I primarly use IMDB as a driver for selecting movies. I find critics working for the mainstream media are, well, just too mainstream for my tastes. I get more value from my peer's opinions than some overpaid critic.

Re:Kick Ass

[dustinbarbour]

Can Google do integrate trigonometric functions? Seriously.. I wanna know. It'll make my Calc III homework so much easier next semester.

Re:Kick Ass

[Mister Impressive]

cos1337

Haven't bothered to test extensively...

Re:Kick Ass

[Mister Impressive]

How to use the Google calculator... after a minute of looking around a bit.

This is far better:

[xeoron]

After viewing what Google offers I sort of hate to say it but, Yahoo still beats them hands down with their similar movie review/theather-finder/ticket purchise service at http://movies.yahoo.com./

Re:This is far better:

[Theaetetus]

Why is Yahoo's implementation better? When I see their page, I see lots of banners, pictures everywhere hyping movies I have no interest in, and an animated flash advertisement for... Yahoo.

Google's implementation is just as fast as their regular search, plus I can get there from just doing a normal search, without having to go to a separate "movie" search page.

Re:This is far better:

[xeoron]

Since I block banners and have flash-block plugin none of that is a problem for me. There service lists more thearters where I live along with more info related to the theater, also summaries, reviews and comments a click away.

Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap.

[Dr. Spork]

Huh? No direction finding in Google maps? Look again. They have it, the interface for it is excellent, and it actually gives decent directions.

tell me they didn't do this on purpose

[rizzo5]

Either someone at Google did some tinkering, or this is an amazing coincidence:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
1hr 50min - Comedy/SciFi/Fantasy - 42 reviews

unclear review selection criteria

[andrius_sytas]

is it just me, or google seems to aggregate only the positive-thinking sites? And no honest (according to Stephen King) reviews of Filty Critic are in sight?

For instance, Crash gets two fingers (out of five) on Filthy's scale, and Google gives it four stars (out of five). Million Dollar Baby is 3 on Critic and 4.5 on Google.

There is no explanation on how movie review pool was selected. OK, it mentions that the list was "determined automatically by a computer program", but what was the reasoning behind programming the program to look in some places (i.e. rec.arts.movies.reviews) but not others.

Google really needs to increase transparency of the service before I start trusting it.

Re:unclear review selection criteria

[Theaetetus]

I do believe this is why:

Average rating
3.8 / 5
Based on 40 reviews

... and then they go on to list the 40 reviews individually with what each rated. Also, they state "The selection and placement of reviews on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. No movie critics were harmed or even used in the making of this page."
My guess is that the ranking of those reviews are determined through PageRank. Higher ranked sites get higher placement in the list of reviews. As for Filthy's review, could it be that a) they don't have a clear rating system that Google can automatically pull from the page (the graphic is the only key, rather than a text "2 out of 5 fingers" or something) or b) that Google is a family-friendly service, and they don't want to include a page that starts "I'm beginning to think those grassfuckers in Hollywood aren't paying attention to me. All this time, I thought they gave a shit. Maybe not, though. I can't even count the number of times I've told those assholes that we want to be entertained by movies."

I think it should be...

[Burebista]

Google controls Movie Ratings, Times and Reviews

Re:Bought reviews

[ignorant_coward]

Without even referencing the book or the BBC series, the movie itself wasn't assembled very well. There was some individual talent in the movie, but it was drained by the audio sounding like it was recorded in a gymnasium and the combined actors had no chemistry at all. It was like watching a high school film project. If this was the intent of the director, then the initial big-budget dolphin musical and the first-rate hollywood effects failed entirely to set the mood. I also wonder how much the actors struggled with green screens, as was the case in the Star Wars prequels.

Subject

[Legion303]

In other up-to-the-minute news, Slashdot adds the ability to post comments.

Google's fine print

[oskard]

No movie critics were harmed or even used in the making of this page. Haha, gotta love their sense of humor

Nothing new

[Snaller]

Surely they have been doing that for ages?

It is more than a search engine

[magixman]

If you don't like it don't read it.

When Bill Gates said ten years ago that the Internet would become an 'Information Appliance' I really did not understand what he was talking about and thought he was a pompous ass. Now I search the internet 20-30 times per day and would be absolutely lost without out it.

So why is Google better? Probably not because their search engine is better. It is their formula - simplicity and relevancy. Their pages are not cluttered and contain only relevant information. Their ads are relevant. Their features are relevant.

What impresses me about this movie review is not how they review movies or the feature itself - which will change. It is the way it fits into the simple/relevant formula - you type the name of a movie or keywords about the plot and that is the way it starts. You don't have to navigate to movie.this or movie.that you just start typing. This is the way the world is starting to work and think and is a subtle but discernable shift from the old way.

all the features

[jaymz411]

http://www.google.com/help/features.html

i use the calculator most

this feature is at least a month old

[kazem]

The movie search feature's been in there for quite a while...

aaahhh....

[slappyjack]

Doughnuts^HGoogle, is there anything they can't do?

Sometimes you pay for convenience..

[cybrthng]

And fandango is worth it. Saves me an hour or two of time for popular movies that i can spend having a nice dinner with the family or something else on.

I pay more for a soda at a CONVENIENCE store than a box store/grocery store, so why wouldn't that apply to other services that offer a CONVENIENCE.

Just because it's online doesn't mean it's any cheaper to offer than paying someone 6 bucks to site in a "bullet proof box" as last time i checked engineers, sysadmins, webmasters and developers were a LOT more than 6 bucks an hour salary.

It seems to be geographically circumscribed

[theguyfromsaturn]

I don't get that movie icon when I do the same search.

Re:It seems to be geographically circumscribed

[freakmn]

Do they have movies on Saturn? I'm afraid I've never vacationed there.

Re:It seems to be geographically circumscribed

[theguyfromsaturn]

Yes they do. They mostly involve some alien probes crashing on our turf. Of course, the "Saturn" thing is only a vague geographical reference. Most people here live on Titan. Actually, a cousin, of a cousin of my uncle, had some alien probe crash through the roof of his house a couple of months ago.

He never knew what hit him, poor guy. It's really too bad, because he lives in lake country, where everybody dreams of owning a cottage... and we were going to babysit his home during next summer. Talk about bad timing. Of course it could have been worse, as we might have been the ones stuck in the house the the crash happened.

Re:It seems to be geographically circumscribed

[freakmn]

Amazing. And they have internet connections there? I would guess that the latency would be astronomical. What I think would be even more ironic is if you ran Seti@home there. Do you?

Re:It seems to be geographically circumscribed

[theguyfromsaturn]

No we don't have SETI@home but we have something very similar calle STI@tarpit. However, the search for terrestrial intelligence keeps coming up empty. This is creating a lot of noise around here about the high cost of such an endeavour.

The consensus is that if there ever was intelligent life on Terra, it has been long extinct. Ancient texts speak of some big rock hitting the third planet a few millions years back (as observed by the now famous astronomers Nibil and Boop). Some people believe that it wiped out all potential for uplift on that poor world. Of course, texts that old are not always reliable. Anything older than 2 million years contains more fantasy than fact.

But most scientists say that the third planet could never have fostered life, since the ground temperature is high enough on most of the planet to totally melt the rock. They say that the planet is covered in "oceans" of molten rock at temperatures exceeding 273 K. It's scary to imagine such an inferno, and makes it very dubious that life was ever possible there... much less intelligent life.

Google dupe pattern?

[Plutor]

I've noticed an interesting pattern here on Slashdot. The editors are obviously notorious for duplicate stories (although, in my opinion, they have improved over the last few years). But a couple weeks after posting an article about a new Google feature, someone independently discovers it and the Slashdot editors feel the need to discuss it again. I only point this out because they did it not one month ago with search by numbers (original).

It knew my Zip Code already...

[msbmsb]

I know this feature is old news, but when I clicked the link in the story, it gave me results for my zip code without me entering it...So somewhere along the line when I was using google maps or something, the system knew which was my zip code...that was a little creepy.

Re:It knew my Zip Code already...

[Bongo Bill]

Probably for use in Google Local, or if you haven't used that, the last search at Google Maps. There's a lot of information stored in the Google cookie. Clear it and see if it still enters your zip code automatically (hint: it won't).

Show all movies playing nearby

[Chief Typist]

Set your location (I used my ZIP code.) Then do a search with just "movie:" -- it shows what's playing in my local area.

Cool.

-ch

metacritic is much better

[Raisey-raison]

Metacritic is so buch better. Google cant compete here. www.metacritic.com Go to the film section

Great, if you live where I don't

[Grismar]

Nice of Google to keep adding nice features for citizens of the USA (and possibly Canada or thereabouts, though I did not check). But Google is starting to get more and more cluttered for those of us who use it daily and don't have the good fortune to live in the USA. (I'll stay in the Netherlands thank you very much, in case some smartass was thinking to suggest I move)

Also, the movies offered on Google seem to be big Hollywood productions, none of the more obscure stuff, so one has to wonder who is paying for this service? Now, I know it's not at all easy for your average American to go and see the latest European or Asian flics (not to mention Indian, Chinese or African, to name but three other large movie-producing countries) anyway, but shouldn't a service like this help that aspect even more than just become another outlet for Hollywood advertising?

This new feature smells a bit off to me and my "cool"-ranking for Google just dropped another point.

Re:Great, if you live where I don't

[Bongo Bill]

Google searches have historically been based on whether people are talking about a given movie. Big-name Hollywood titles get much more attention than independent films; therefore, Google reports those first. Maybe it's unfair, maybe it perpetuates the cycle, but there's nothing sinister going on here. Just the way it's written.

inconsistant

[mikeraz]

Googling for Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy does not get the same kind of link at the top.

Re:inconsistant

[rizzo5]

It worked for me, perhaps because I included the apostrophe. I guess the standard Google fuzziness doesn't apply to movie titles (yet?)

Arkwright

[Colin Smith]

Is it just me or are Google turning into the Arkwright of the 21st century? Not in employment terms of course.

Too ad they can't remember my home address

[Ars-Fartsica]

Who are the idiots retyping this info for each new driving direction query? Yahoo at least remembers where I live (if I choose to let it).

Re:Kick Ass

[znode]

You can try http://integrals.wolfram.com/ instead; keep in mind that with integrals, anything complex doesn't come out "correctly". (not in a very "human" form, a lot of e^ and ln)

Good.

[That's Unpossible!]

Maybe we'll finally be able to search and LOCATE WHERE ALL THE FUCKING MONEY WENT.

Re:Good.

[Quince alPillan]

Easy enough. It was borrowed.

THIS IS NOT A DUPE

[That's Unpossible!]

Well, not exactly. The "movie:" keyword was a story as you pointed out.

However, this story points out that that keyword is no longer needed, if you just search for a movie title of a currently playing movie, it comes up with that info in the results.

Yeah, and now "THEY" know your zip code.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Zonk: Once you've entered your zip code, it will also tell you what movies are playing in your area.

zetasmack: google knows all. do not question.

Today you've entered your zip code into the largest database in the history of the human species, and it's been cross-correlated with the Google cookie on your hard drive.

Tomorrow you're gonna enter what? Your phone number? Your home address? Your SSN? Your vote for president?

Some day you people are gonna yearn for an earlier, simpler time, when people could reasonably expect to enjoy a right to anonymity.

PS: What is this "scirusgoogle" cookie I have?

Re:Yeah, and now "THEY" know your zip code.

[Xopl]

That's why I also google a few other random zip codes along with my own, just to keep them guessing.

Re:Yeah, and now "THEY" know your zip code.

[BinLadenMyHero]

when people could reasonably expect to enjoy a right to anonymity.

What? Does Google steal your zip code without your consent?
No, you give your zip code if you choose to do it. You can still choose to use the Google movie service without giving your zip code; or even not to use it at all.

google knows all. do not question.

[falconwolf]

Shouldn't that be Yahoo! knows all? Afterall they've been doing this for years. Speaking of Google and Yahoo!, Yahoo! was one of the original investers in Google before the IPO.

Falcon

Re:google knows all. do not question.

[zetasmack]

just because yahoo has been doing it for years doesnt mean they know how to do it as well. altavista was top dog of searches for a while, yahoo had its day too. point is sometimes companies just know what their customers want and people flock to them.

still WIP

[thomsenb]

Its nice..but doesn't work yet. I just watched a movie at a theater, and google doesn't find that movie at that theater. Or the theater at all for that matter.

Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap.

[X86Daddy]

The only reason I don't use Google maps is they didn't have direction finding last I checked.

Make your query involve two addresses separated by the word "to".

Re:Yahoo FreeBSD use predates Google Linux use

[PotatoHead]

OK, OK, I'm not anti Yahoo! Afterall they are the last bit independant portal from the early days left. I used to use them a lot.

Google is just cooler, that's all.

After thinking about it a little, it's Google's overall attitude and marketing approach that's getting the attention. Yahoo has innovated, but has not bucked the trend like Google has. Google has a plain old page, Google "does no evil", Google went with text ads, went with non-paid search results, etc....

Yahoo, is messy, does run the ads, don't know about paid results because I don't use them often these days, and has one hell of a tacky interface to their groups, search, mail, etc...

My point, poorly embodied in the post above, is that Google does what it does with extreme excellence, IMHO. They shoot for the moon more often than Yahoo! does. Of course, they broke the USENET interface trying to make it more like their own groups... That's a f-up for sure.

In any case, I think these things appeal to the /. crowd more, thus more stories, ok?

Re:Rate web pages

[KillerDeathRobot]

Actually, if they just made the image a question that you'd have to answer (an easy one), I think that would go a long way to make it harder for bots to get it right.

Market

[certel]

For some reason, I just don't have a problem with google taking more and more of the market. Now they need their own OS. :/

Yahoo as well

[DaveJay]

I just wanted to point out that Yahoo! has the exact same thing going on, except for the zip code box on the search results page.

altavista was top dog of searches

[falconwolf]

Yeah, Altavista was my prefered search engine for years. Now most of the tyme I start with Google but occasionally I'll go with About, especially when it comes to archeology and anthropology or photography as About has really good sections on these. When Google doesn't do it for me I'll then go to Dmoz, Teoma, or Mooter.

Falcon

Wrong

[wurp]

Here's what I think: google will use their web accelerator's ability to see every click you make from a web page to automatically rate sites. Links you click get rated higher, when you hang out on the page longer the rating is even higher.

A tamper proof ratings system is pretty easy, if you can assign a unique ID to the rater and you have enough raters. You can look for people who rate things consistently with each other and clump them together. It should be pretty easy to cull out "diseased" clumps that rate only a few sites up and ignore all others. It would be really hard to build a rating spoofer that presented enough unique ids to Google, with each ID rating in a smart enough way, that the spoofer would affect the ratings Google can get from millions of people browsing through the WA.

You can even give people pageranks that are based on their personal preferences + the preferences of other people in their clump. Think of left-handed and right-handed whuffie a la Corey Doctorow.

Google, if you haven't thought of this already, I want a job ;-)

Re:Rate web pages

[Chiasmus_]

[i]Actually, if they just made the image a question that you'd have to answer (an easy one), I think that would go a long way to make it harder for bots to get it right.[/i]

Now that is [i]interesting[/i].

But consider that there's big money at stake here. If a company like Yahoo complied ten thousand images with simple questions on them ("What animal says 'quack'?"), I can pretty much guarantee that spam companies would simply respond by hiring ten teenagers to catalog a thousand questions each over the course of a week and recreate Yahoo's database.

I'm not sure how one would get around this problem. And, of course, there's a language-barrier problem, too: a Japanese person might have good enough English to want to use the website for a legitimate purpose, but might not know that we think ducks say 'quack' (because, let's face it, they don't).

yep

[Tsuminaoshi]

you're totally right. the "i want it now" instant gratification desparation of our society (and i'm not saying i'm not one of them, i think we all are, who wants to wait?) is finally affecting things on a broader spectrum. It isn't jsut that you can find out anything you want, and you can do it fast, but you can do it much more simply. I just used it and it's brilliant. No waiting for a site to load, then enter relevant info to find showtimes, just bang and you have your info. nice and simple, just as google does best.

and states

[19usc2462bH]

Yeah, Google! Extend your reach to the 51st State!

If you Google for state name + constitution, you'll get a result like this:

California
Constitution: 31st State
According to http://www.50states.com/californ.htm

Doesn't work for possible 51st states such as Canada, Puerto Rico, England or the UK. And not all "real" states it seems: New York instead gives "local results". (If you just search for the state name you get "news briefs" for the state.) I just noticed this today, don't know how long this has been.

No movie critics were harmed

[ArizonaJer]

Funny disclaimer on Google's results page:

"No movie critics were harmed or even used in the making of this page."

I wonder if anyone has ever compiled a list of parodies of the American Humane Association's ratings. Incidentally, you can find the ratings themselves over here:

http://www.americanhumane.org/site/PageServer?page name=pa_film_ratings

google ESP?

[N3Z]

I checked the posted link and google offered me theaters in my area! I did not enter my ZIP.

How did they know? My IP addresses location? Did they get my ZIP previously and record it?

Bye Bye Ticket Office

[Doc Ruby]

I prefer to have tickets already, before showing up for a sold-out movie. While lots of people feel the way you do, or don't even think to try, it also gives an edge in beating the crowds, so movies are sold out less often at the time I buy in advance. And if a movie is sold out at the time I try to buy, I can try another theater without schlepping around (possibly without success), or check into another movie online to attempt purchase. And without having to stand in line in bad weather, or for unpredictable waits before a movie starts.

In fact, I don't know why anyone buys tickets any other way. Maybe this all applies only to places like NYC where there's lots of competition for sold-out shows, and lots of alternative theaters and movies. But it's at least as convenient as buying at the theater, as long as I'm already online when I want to buy tickets - which is almost all the time, especially as I have a smartphone.