Movie recommendations are broken, try couchpotato.be

by knaidu

Yes, Netflix spent a million dollars and probably more to build and tweak their movie recommendation. I am not sure about you, but I barely find it useful. I am pretty lazy, and I hate spending time to rate a movie after i finish watching it. No one likes doing it just so netflix can tell us what we might like the next time. In practice this is what happens, I call a friend and –

“I’m in the mood for a psyco thriller”

“I feel like watching something like Notting Hill”

“Were there any popular movies that I might have missed in 2011”

A rating based, data mined recommendation system might be cool, but doesn’t work in practice. What helps is something that tells me what my friend’s have liked, what they recommend others to watch or something that’s on their to-watch list. Again, I am not trying to generalize and say just pick a movie that most of my friends recommend and something I’ve not seen and ask me to watch it. No that’s boring. The process of finding a movie is the fun part. So let me do it, the app should make this step easy for me not take away the fun out out of it.

Another problem is deciding on a movie on a friday night with 5 hungry friends. Its not easy, its very frustrating, and every one starts with “I dont mind any movie” or “I want to watch a fun movie”. How on earth do you settle on a movie now ? Something that helps friends collectively build a playlist would be prefect, and all this can be done even before you get to the couch.

Introducing couchpotato.be – a right step in that direction. Its all that I mentioned above and some more. Build lists, explore, and share the shit out of them. Some see IMDB ratings, some check rotten tomato ratings, some go by their friend’s opinion. They let it be this way and don’t change how the users decide on the movie, they just make it easier for them. It’s a 1985 product, these talented folks are keeping it simple and easy. Go ahead and try it out, be a couch potato !