Slashdot Mirror
Movietally and Understanding Web 2.0 Design
haym37 writes "Ajit Jaokar over at the Open Gardens blog has an article up on a growing service called movietally. The service allows users to tag the movies they've seen and receive automatic recommendations for movies they might like to see. He describes it as a 'textbook case of web 2.0 design' and goes into detail about the fundamental principles of web 2.0 design and how movietally relates to them. The interesting part about all of this is that, according to the article, the founder is only fifteen years old and created it in under a month."
search movies / porn : your search returned no results
how exactly old is he?
root of all...
Since the summary doesn't see fit to actually post a link to the FA: enjoy.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
I think I'll wait for web 2.1 to come along so that all the bugs will be fixed.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
I had a BBS. Big whoop.
Now the 12 year old founder loses all his candy-money to /.-effect bandwidth bill.
...Slashdotted in only six seconds.
Nothing new here ...
...
...
Netflix did it long time ago
I wish someone did something like that for Sci-Fi books - a lot of them
are crap I do not look, but a few are crap I love
A previous post mentioned that Netflix did this a long time ago. Amazon did the same thing for books even before that. So how exactly does this demonstrate anything compelling about web 2.0?
What the author of the article sees: What I see:
1. Tags
2. Large font
3. Rounded edges
4. Top-right search box
5. Prominent, two-tone, quasi-logical logo
Haven't we had that since Web 1.0?
That assumes that users tag consistently, fairly, clearly, and correctly. It's also vulnerable to spamming and trolling.
Tagging by users works within small communities - but I doubt it will scale up.
Also collaborative filtering, rate a bunch of products, which could well be films, or anything else, and have products recommended by people who rated other things in a similar way to you. I have to be honest, it could be implemented better but it basically works.
http://www.wikilens.org/
Deleted
It's certainly not a textbook case of good design. The two identical search boxes, the huge fonts for the tags...the fact when I visit the homepage if I had no idea what a tagging system was (and plenty of people don't) I'd be totally confused...
Since when did Web 2.0 = forgetting all about usability and going with 'it looks minimal, so therefore cool'
Oh, wait. It's always been like that.
I am guessing he cribbed the idea from the likes of http://last.fm/ , a music site which has a similar system. (Editorialization: Except better)
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
It's not really a complex system he has set up here. But really at 15, this isn't that impressive. ... is it really far fetched that a 15 year old could do this?
Sure, anyone could have done it but he did. This guy just beat all the big studios and media companies to the punch with a simple, stand alone and useful service. That's impressive at any age. What cool ideas have you implemented? By age 15?
The onlything I don't like is his terms of service. I stopped reading where it stated that I was responsible for whatever was done with my account.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I think the important point here is that the kid is 15 years old and is doing some decent work in making a site using semi-recent ideas in web development.
In many ways, the site seems to be a grotesque travesty of web 2.0 memes. For example, one of the points the article mentions:
5. "Shift to Programming: Separation of Structure and Style"
The site uses tables for layout - this certainly isn't characteristic of Web 2.0 or seperating structure from style. 90% of web 2.0 sites do it better, with CSS.
But that's not the point - or at least it shouldn't be. What we have here is a case of the next generation of web developers starting with some of the newer ideas in design as their base. And it's still pretty impressive if a 15-year-old put it together in a month.
Besides the non web-2.0 versions at Amazon/NetFlix/the like, Spout has been doing this for awhile with full tagging, community features, and everything else that screams web 2.0. Furthermore, Spout has a stronger developer base and a more flushed-out featureset. While I think it's great that a 15-year-old can put together a neat website incorporating many of these newer interface and social networking rules, I prefer to use a really well made website. Flickr, digg, and the rest aren't just popular because of pretty colors and tags... they're popular because they use these user experience technologies on top of a well-built system.
michael greene
Ahhh, the continued irrational exhuberance of Web 2.0. Where's the beef?
If you want a real site for getting movie recommendations then try http://www.moviefreak.org/ or any of a number of movie recommendation sites that will give you better results w/o all the Web 2.0 hype.
There are times when tables, bold tags, or other html simplicity just works better. CSS is very useful, but like all things it isn't the only consideration. XML is like that -- useful, but not critical. Don't get me started on "Ajax" which doesn't justify having a name of its own as it is simply the codification of a technique that's been around a while.
If the job gets done well, the technology was a good choice. I have programmers who start with a technology before they have a design.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Let's be honest for a few minutes here - most online reviews are either so wordy you'd be saving time just watching the flick or they consist of some 12-year-old saying "OMG TiHz M0v13 iZ T3h SuX0r!!!!1". It's hardly compelling enough content to make a site worth a visit. I've also never really felt that what was lacking from my blog* (which no one reads anyway) was an RSS feed of someone else's favorite movies. I'm not one to toot Apple's horn, but they already have a peer review system, members' "favorite" lists, tube-clogging truckloads of trailers, and pretty soon (once they get all the licencing deals ironed out with the rest of the studios) the ability to purchase, download and watch any movie of your choice - all in one place.
Is the real story here that some 15-year-old put up a website, outside of MySpace?
* Perhaps that's what Web 2.0 is really about. Automatically sharing dynamic, user-generated content that never actually gets read.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
AJAX concepts aren't exacly rocket science, I am sure a 13 year old could do it given the drive (*sigh* to be a teenager with all that time and energy to devote to sheer folly.)
When I was 15 I was learning BASIC in highschool on PETs, back then that was about it for the resources available to me. Nowadays there is a lot more available opportunity for kids to explore. (thank goodness for FOSS)
I'm really glad to read some of them are picking up on stuff like that.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
He's beaten who to what?
There is simply nothing that original here.
now hold on...you forgot the most important web 2.0 "feature"...
6. Gradiant header background.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
I'm not the first to say this but I delved a bit into the sites code and it is by far a textbook case. It's clearly work of a coder who has never done this stuff before.
First, some links call JS functions. I *hate* this. I'm talking the three lnks under the "Browse" section on the main page.
Second, regarding the links above. They initiate an ajax update of a div. What it doesn't do is tell the user that it is updating. Just now, I waited 30 seconds for the div to update. This is certainly due to slashdotting but it demonstrates poor design.
Third, again regarding the links above. All three contents update the same DIV which means the content stays stale and is now mislabeled.
Fourth, he uses a global variable to store the XMLHttpRequest/XMLHTTP object. This means you can't have multiple outstanding requests.
That's just the first page and the ajax at a cursory glance.
The visual aspects are equally appalling and it doesn't seem like it will scale at all. Right now there are 27 people who have seen The Matrix. What happens when a million people use this site. Personally, I don't care to see all million names.
I also don't get this tags movement. Mostly, why should genres be freeform? Currently there's "scifi" and there's "sci-fi". Doesn't make sense to tag with genres, characters, or people. These are all fixed things.
All that said: the site is poorly executed for what it's trying to achieve. The Wikipedia link is nice but what about IMDB? How about pulling up the WP or IMDB page in an iframe (but that's "old school", what about an innerHTML on a DIV)? Perhaps do some web service interaction with amazon and get some reference links out of it? How about web service interaction to google?
What does this site do for me? Tell me what other people watch? I don't want to know what everybody watches, I want to know what other people like me watch and recommend. I like Baseketball but I guarantee my dad doesn't so why should his tastes impact mine?
Not to rag too much on a 15 year old, but overall the site isn't slashdot worthy. But what else is new around here? All I know is that if this site was in a text book...man...that'd be one sucky book.
:wq
If by a "textbook case of web 2.0 design", he means a textbook case of how not to do it, I think I can agree with him, the site is hideous!
And, of course, the fact that it is far from a new idea, everyone from Netflix to Amazon have offered collaborative filtering on movies for years.
..of the websites I visit that are using CSS I just give up and start looking for the "print this page" link so I can read the thing. To me, CSS means floating text over fuzzy images. I'm sure it can be done _well_, but now it is just done _often_.
movies.yahoo.com has been doing this for well over a year, and it's very easy and fast. The recommendations, after you've told it enough about what you like, are actually pretty spot-on.
Plus you have the added benefit of being able to link directly to where that movie is showing, the cast, plot, reviews, etc. And if you have way too much money, pay the extra fee and get your tickets from Fandango.
Of course it works with old movies just as much as new releases.
-David
Seriously, I'm so tiered of this web 2.0 bandwagon which is most often not much more then a rehash of technology that has been out there for years but has now gotten a lot of male cow manure added to it to make it sound interesting and new.
The interesting part about all of this is that, according to the article, the founder is only fifteen years old and created it in under a month."
Yes, and MySpace was created and founded by that nice guy called Tom.
This sounds like marketing bullcrap to me.
No it isn't. It is a collection of opinions of movies.
What's the point of your comment? Are you jaded and old, upset that there might be someone who, at his age, is brighter than you were at such an age? Nobody here is going to bring this story's postings to a screeching halt and begin hailing user "JoeCommodore" as an up-and-comming Pulitzer prize winner. The kid has drive, talent, and now partial fame. You, I am guessing, are unlikely to ever possess any of these traits.
I'm doing better tham most Joes, 'Joe Commodore has a critic and a "critical review!"' :-D
As I said, gald to see the kids are doing well, more power to them.
BTW, AC, good luck on your 'snide comment carrer', really!
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield