There are dozens of movie recommendation engines on the Web. Some require little or no input before they give you titles, while others want to find out exactly what your interests are. I've been using 10 movie recommendation engines on both sides of the equation. They're all different, but some are definitely better than others.
The Top 10
Netflix makes recommendations pretty, but...
(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)10. Netflix Netflix asks you to rate movies to determine which films you'll want to see next. And although it does make it easy to rate movies and it does return huge lists, there's too much duplication in the results and the ideas it gives you aren't all that strong. It's easy to use, but it's not the best way to get movie recommendations.
9. Rotten Tomatoes Instead of telling Rotten Tomatoes which films you like, you can tell it what kind of films you enjoy, which actors you want to see, and other criteria to help it find the best movie for you. There's a lot of variability in the quality of Rotten Tomatoes recommendations but it's also a nice way to find the right film for any mood.
8. Movielens Movielens is ugly. But what it lacks in beauty, it makes up for with a great recommendation engine that evaluates your tastes based on ratings to films you've seen before. Once you rate 15 movies, it returns recommendations that, based on my testing, were quite accurate and certainly more relevant than results from Netflix.
7. Flixster Flixster is the pretty version of Movielens. The site allows you to rate films and it returns recommendations that are about as good as Movielens. Beyond beauty, Flixster beats out Movielens because it offers extras like film quizzes, the capability to monitor friends' ratings, and more. It's good for people who want more than just movie ideas.
6. IMDb Instead of asking you to input ratings or to tell it what movies you like, IMDb automatically recommends similar films to the movie you search for. At the bottom of the page, a "Recommendations" section explains that if you liked a respective film, you'll like the handful of other films being displayed, based on information gathered from an IMDb database, which examines films to find similarities and differences. It's a great way for people who don't have time to rate movies to find some films worth watching. Even better, the recommendations are solid.
Yep, Iron Man was a good movie.
(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)5. Criticker Criticker is another one of those sites that places no stock in design, but it does a fine job of finding movies worth watching. Instead of just allowing you to rank films, the site compares your ratings to those of other users and employs something called the "Taste Compatibility Index" to see how closely your tastes match these other users. Once the service finds matches, you can view other users' profiles and see which movies they like. When I tried it, the other users' preferences were in line with my own on almost every film. Combining community and functionality, Criticker is a unique, yet worthwhile service to check out.
4. Clerkdogs Input the name of a film you like and Clerkdogs will return similar films. It's that simple. And it works. For both major movies and small films, it always found relevant recommendations when I gave it a starting point of a film I liked.
3. Nanocrowd At first glance, Nanocrowd looks like every other film search engine: you input the name of a film you like and it returns results. But the site goes well beyond a simple results page. Nanocrowd allows you to drill down into a more refined search with the help of a "three-word nanogenre." On the results page, you click which three-word category you prefer, based on keywords related to the movie you input into the search field, and Nanocrowd immediately refines your search to get the best film for you. Even better, the films it displays aren't always blockbusters.
2. Taste Kid If you want more than good movie recommendations, Taste Kid is the site for you. It's simple enough--you input a film you like and it returns results that offer similar action to your favorites. But it goes beyond just movies. If you really like "The Godfather," Taste Kid fills you in on what kind of bands you'll like to listen to, books you'll want to read, and "other stuff" that's related to that film. Taste Kid is a full entertainment recommendation engine.
Semantic search on Jinni is incredible.
(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)1. Jinni Jinni is the best movie recommendation engine on the Web. Period. Whether you want to search for films in the search field or you want to find films based on your mood, time available, setting, or reviews, the site has it all. I searched for movies based on my mood and followed that with a search based on my plot preference. Each time, films that I've watched and loved in the past, or that I haven't watched but definitely want to see popped up.
But perhaps the most compelling feature that Jinni offers is its semantic search. You can input terms like, "movies that have gangsters" or "films that show Chris Farley yelling" and the site will return films that match your query. It's mind-blowing.
Go use Jinni. You won't regret it.
You may have heard me say this before, but it's worth repeating: I love the Internet.
From my first forays onto Yahoo in the mid-1990s, to my slow, methodical construction of a perfect rating on eBay to the dozens of times I use Google every day, there is simply no question about it: I am head over heels gaga for the medium.
But no matter how many times I laugh at a YouTube video, read something interesting on NYTimes.com or consult Wikipedia, I think my true favorite online hangout is the Internet Movie Database, or IMDB.
What can I say? I love movies, watch them all the time and I find myself constantly doing searches on the site to find out where I recognize that actor in the third lead from or to see what other films or TV shows a director has made.
Yet even I was surprised when I discovered today that IMDB just turned 18 years old. Seriously. Eighteen.
Now, like me, you may not have thought it was possible for a Web site to be older than 14, since the Web didn't even come along until 1994. But there it was in my inbox today: an e-mail touting the fact that IMDB first launched on October 17, 1990, the creation of then-teenager Col Needham.
According to Wikipedia, the database got its start on Usenet newsgroups and later morphed into a proper Web site.
Regardless, this e-mail, sadly, also burst one of my bubbles of naivete (and sure, I have plenty of others left): the idea that IMDB was, despite its ever more polished look and feel, an independent site run by a small but dedicated team who just could not let a minute pass where someone like me can't find out whether Better off Dead or The Sure Thing came first (according to IMDB, they were both from 1985, but the latter preceded the former).
In fact, according to the release in my inbox, Amazon.com bought IMDB in 1998. Sigh.
No matter, though, because over the years, the site has stayed remarkably true to its original mission and to this day is the undisputed champion of movie and TV-related cross-referencing. Sure, it has a few bugs here and there, but in almost every test I've ever put the site through, it's given me exactly what I wanted, and settled more than a few arguments over whether this actor was in that film or not. He was. Or wasn't. I can't remember.
So, here's a big happy birthday to you, IMDB, on the occasion of your turning 18. Now, if only you could go vote on November 4.
It would make sense that IMDb, the leading provider of movie and TV information on the Internet, would offer video on its Web site. After all, IMDb is a huge point of discovery of new movies for a lot of people, so the instant gratification of streaming that new movie that you just found is a big draw.
Previously, IMDb only offered videos in the form of clips and trailers. On Monday, IMDb took a step in the right direction and launched a selection of 6,000 full length films and TV episodes, available for streaming right now. All users have to do is click the big gold "Watch It" button as they are browsing through movie and TV pages.
Most of the content available is coming from Hulu, with a smaller portion from CBS, Sony, and independent filmmakers. (CNET is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.)
While it's anyone's guess as to why it took IMDb so long to realize the potential of streaming full length movies and TV episodes on their site, at least it's getting into the game now. This addition should keep users on the site longer instead of losing them to Hulu or similar sites as they search for the content that they just discovered.
This is really the first move that IMDb has made into the Web 2.0 space. VentureBeat's MG Siegler describes IMDb's user experience as being, "trapped in the 1990s." Being largely unchanged in a decade, there is a huge opportunity to introduce experience enhancing features to the Amazon.com-owned site here and it looks like they are moving in that direction.
Mentioned above, IMDb is also letting independent filmmakers showcase their movies on the site. This could provide for some much needed exposure for the indie crowd as IMDb drives people down the long tail of movies. Like the video content available from Hulu, IMDb's streaming service is limited to the U.S.
The concept of the "wisdom of crowds" is a fundamental building block of a lot of the Web 2.0 services that we see today. While not all of them are built on this core concept, major sites like Digg, Wikipedia, and Mahalo rely heavily on crowds being wise. There have been several instances of this system breaking down in the past, one notable occurrence being the infamous Digg HD-DVD revolt. On occasions like this, a mob mentality tends to take over a very vocal and active segment of a community, greatly skewing the product of their collective "wisdom." We are seeing the latest meltdown of crowd wisdom over at IMDB, the popular movie information database as we speak.
(Credit:
Warner Bros.)
Since the release of The Dark Knight, the film has made an incredible surge to the No. 1 position on IMDB's Top 250 list, a spot that has only been held by The Godfather for the last decade or so. While most serious movie watchers would argue that claiming that The Dark Knight is the best movie of all time is ridiculous, we might be able to chalk the massive surge up to the unparalleled amount of hype that surrounded this movie, particularly in Internet communities.
Since The Dark Knight's initial rise, an even more interesting trend has revealed itself. /Film is reporting that, in an attempt to keep the movie on top, fans of The Dark Knight have been voting down The Godfather. The movie has gotten hammered so badly by Batman fans that it has fallen to the No. 3 spot. So, not only has The Godfather dropped out of the No. 1 spot for the first time in a decade, but now it has dropped from the second spot as well. This sort of drastic shift hardly seems the work of a wise crowd.
The Dark Knight has taken the top spot on IMDB, while The Godfather, the previous top film for the last 10 years, dropped to third.
(Credit: IMDB.com)We are seeing a similar effect here to what happened with the Digg HD-DVD debacle. This mob mentality, brought on by a significant event (in this case, the release of The Dark Knight), causes a total breakdown in a system that is otherwise fairly accurate, useful, and trustworthy. The original theory of the wisdom of crowds discusses this sort of failure. A quotation from Wikipedia on the topic reads, "...in these types of situations their cognition or cooperation failed because the members of the crowd were too conscious of the opinions of others and began to emulate each other and conform rather than think differently."
Cases like what is happening on IMDB's Top 250 right now are not the fault of the users of the site. They are just acting how humans have always acted. Mob mentality is in our nature. We are always being influenced heavily by these outside sources. Sites like IMDB and Digg need to be set up to deal with and process the effects of an eventual mob action.
I am still a firm believer in the wisdom of crowds. I think that it is a tremendously powerful concept that can be applied to a variety of areas. However, if it is not implemented correctly, you will occasionally get breakdowns like we see here. In the cases of Digg and IMDB, these breakdowns happen infrequently enough that it is not a major concern and does not usually disrupt the use of the site. That said, we have seen, with some consistency, that the system can be broken or manipulated by the actions of a passionate group of individuals, acting as a mob. If these incidents are not largely prevented in the future and become commonplace, we risk a lot of people losing faith in this otherwise very useful system.
The folks over at Trademork have uncovered a trademark filed by the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) for the name "SoundUnwound." In the description, IMDb lists the potential future service as:
"Providing information regarding, and in the nature of, social networking services; online social networking services designed for people with a common desire to meet other people with similar interests; Social networking services for music enthusiasts."
While IMDb is currently limited to movies, TV shows, and other visual mediums, it's also expanded into a resume service as well as offering video games. The company is owned by Amazon.com, which just happens to be a massively popular music provider, both for optical media as well as digital downloads. While Amazon hasn't released sales numbers since the launch of their DRM-free music service in late September, what's a better way to leverage a large catalog than with an integrated user community? IMDb is already selling movies inside their site, using Amazon.com's catalog and kicking users off via affiliate links. The same could easily be done with Amazon's music catalog, which is to be expected of SoundUnwound.
What's a bit interesting is that Amazon hasn't chosen to simply pick up one of the current sites that are offering social matching based on music taste, including iLike, Last.fm, and MyStrands (which incidentally took $24M in funding this morning); the first two of which have successful Facebook apps in addition to their own communities. Amazon must be looking to either provide deeper integration or leverage their own account system, which would let users buy music without requiring a separate registration. Stay tuned.
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