Ask HN: Anyone want to help improve my film news aggregator?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3269878

by Mrtierne • 15 years ago

4 6 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

filmnewshub.com: It's been a great tool for me to learn. The site even attracted a small group of heavy users but it could certainly be a more attractive/powerful tool.

iambot• 15 years ago

What kinda help you looking for, Im a designer and front-end (javascript etc) dev. Is the project open source?

Edit: I'd be interested in helping/contributing.

Mrtierne3• 15 years ago

Nothing really to open source but it's built on: Universal Feed Parser, Django, MySQL. I do support open source so encourage the release of any components developed for the the site to be so.

Design help is very much needed as you can see from the layout. Happy to discuss any ideas, feel free to email me

revorad• 15 years ago

For starters, at least show the date of the articles in the search results. Allow filtering by source, time, author, and any other relevant parameter.

Mrtierne3• 15 years ago

Thanks for the input and yes I agree that'd be great. I've attempted to implement but have been unsuccessful ... still learning :)

anujkk• 15 years ago

Is it like Google News for films? I can see some similarity.

Edit:

Some observations:

1. It is a collection of rss feeds sorted under rss source. Currently, it looks like link farming. If you can add some more information like source, date/time(x hours/mins ago), a short summary/part of actual article, any relevant picture from page, etc. it will become more appealing and informational.

2. Grouping feeds by source isn't that appealing. Group it by either categories or tags.

3. Design needs work. Reduce the size of branding and move it a top left corner. Get some decent logo. Move search box at top. Provide a category based filter in left panel. Change feed items as suggested in point 1.

4. Introduce vote up/down and social sharing feature for each news item.

5. Introduce some sections like top news, editor's choice, personalized feeds etc.

Mrtierne3• 15 years ago

A Google News layout would be great and yes that would be more useful. It's just that the implementation is beyond my current skill level. - 1. Feeds under the site url. Agreed additional design is needed as well as more metadata displayed.

2. I do like grouping by categories and tags but only in addition to source. I like source because the sites do have very unique voices and posting agendas. For example, Deadline presents information they think people working in the entertainment industry would enjoy. On the other side Slashfilm caters more to casual movie fans.

3. All good ideas, thank you. Anyone want to help with design?

4. Yes, the "AddThis" widget hasn't helped much. A more robust social integration is something I'm currently planning out.

5. All great ideas, but again not sure how to technically implement. I'm aware how some of the better aggs do it with linking and human curation.

Thanks again all good stuff!

Ask HN: Anyone want to help improve my film news aggregator?

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