Show HN: Never watch movies alone

http://www.gotcompany.net

by Danilka • 13 years ago

54 37 13 years ago

gotcompany.net

aegiso• 13 years ago

Not signing in with Facebook. Some marketing copy would be nice.

dreen• 13 years ago

Some sort of about page explaining how this works would be nice.

Danilka11• 13 years ago

Thanks for pointing it. It is a 24h hack, so we'll keep it going!

nawitus• 13 years ago

Make an About page to explain what the site does.

csense• 13 years ago

This idea is brilliant. It's been years since I ditched Facebook, but this might actually convince me to come back.

Danilka11• 13 years ago

Great! We'd be happy for Mark to get you back on Facebook :-))))

RobertHoudin• 13 years ago

I agree that the idea is brilliant, but there is no way I am reactivating my Facebook account to use this. I am sure there are others in the same boat as me.

Could there not be an option to receive matches/invitations via email?

Danilka11• 13 years ago

It does use email for the introduction purposes. We do need Facebook to know who your friends are, though.

slosh• 13 years ago

I think this is a great idea! What i don't get about the current version is how do i know who also wants to watch the movie? I think you'll need to add search features because as a user Im down to see a movie with almost any startup person, college student, regular mate but I don't want to be set up on a blind man-date with homeboy in the tenderloin. It would be cool to see some graph search used. For example I want to see a movie with people who like saving private ryan and the batman movie who also has a background in computer science.

Danilka11• 13 years ago

It will email you, when the match is found.

Yep, we are also thinking of adding some filters to the matching.

highace• 13 years ago

From the little explanation offered, this sounds like a great idea. I'm often going to the cinema by myself because none of my close friends are into the same movies as me. Plus there could be room to expand into different niches with it, like dating.

I think having the Facebook sign in is fair in this case.

On the downside, the appearance of the site looks pretty poor, a classic case of bootstrapitis.

Danilka11• 13 years ago

Thanks, it was built during Disrupt Hackathon in 24h today :-)

w1ntermute• 13 years ago

> Plus there could be room to expand into different niches with it, like dating.

Hmm, has anyone done this with events in general? You say what you want to do and when, and it matches you up with someone.

jjsz• 13 years ago

This is something http://www.swarmly.co/ should get into. It doesn't have much users but imagine you announce that you're going to a park. Only those that arrived plus or minus 5 minutes, that may or may not have the same interest, are shown; it shows up with a pop up. Great for central park and people with a certain type of dog you want to see.

potatolicious• 13 years ago

This is the concept behind howaboutwe.com - disclaimer, I work there.

Specify something you want to do, the more creative the better, can be general or very specific. If it piques someone's interests they'll respond.

ceeK• 13 years ago

Back a long time ago my friend and I used to start a movie at exactly the same time on our respective computers. We'd have headsets to be able to chat about it as we watched. Is this was Gotcompany is? Or?

endianswap• 13 years ago

No. The movies listed are all currently only released in theatres.

samsnelling• 13 years ago

My best attempt at explaining how it works:

1) you put in you Facebook info (which asks for friends, friends locations and the ability to post [I denied that])

2) Your friends either see the automatic post then also log in and see what they mutually want to see? There's also a watch with anyone feature... I assume that's the public.

3) you then mark a movie watched so no one else contacts you about seeing it.

Here is my problem: my friends will probably never use this. Also, the responsive layout hurts to use on mobile. Suggestion: it needs to be able to find out what movies my friends are talking about either on Facebook or twitter. I like the concept, and this is a good starting point, but it needs to suck me in instead of having me wait for friends.

LocalPCGuy• 13 years ago

I don't often go to the movies alone, but I have and I enjoy the experience. It seems like kind of a sad commentary on our society that it is so taboo to go to the movies alone. The service basically assumes "no one WANTS to go to the movies alone".

Now, obviously those that do want to go to the movies alone are probably not a target market for this service and it could be valuable for those that do want someone to go with.

It does seem like another form of encouraging extroversion in our society though.

ctdonath• 13 years ago

People like being alone together.

Danilka11• 13 years ago

Guys, this is our TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon project that was built in 24h. Sorry for all the faults and under-explanation on the site.

david_shaw• 13 years ago

Ah, that explains a lot!

Great work under the time constraints; it might be a good idea to throw some text on there indicating it was a hackathon project (for HNers who may not go to the comments first).

parennoob• 13 years ago

It might be a cool idea to somehow build a tool that does this for Netflix/Hulu.

I generally go to movies in the theater with people I know, but it'd be interesting to have 'shows' of a movie on Netflix, and chat about it with strangers watching it at the same time.

Danilka11• 13 years ago

You can choose to only go with friends on the site too.

diggan• 13 years ago

So what does this do? Signed up to try it up. Said yes to the permissions regarding position and what so ever and said no for the application to post on my friends wall. After that, I clicked "I want to watch this" on a movie and the button turned "I watched it!", nothing else happened on the website nor Facebook.

I don't understand what the website is supposed to do?

Danilka11• 13 years ago

It'll emai you when the match is found.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5622259 for more info.

Danilka11• 13 years ago

Here is how it works:

1. Login with Facebook.

2. Choose the movies you want to watch.

3. Choose whom do you want to watch it with (friends/friends+strangers) and where (San Francisco).

4. We'll shoot an intro email to you when there is a match.

Important thing is that it posts movies you want to watch on your wall, so friends do know this site exists. So, please do not block it, the posts are nice and clean. You are essentially asking friends who wants to watch movies with you.

jstanley• 13 years ago

I actually prefer watching films alone. I find it much easier to concentrate on the film, and it also means it's a lot easier to stop watching and do something else if the film is boring.

Swizec• 13 years ago

Moreso, most movies offer a much higher video quality on my laptop screen than on any theatre screen I've ever seen. The availability of a comfy bed to watch from is also a big plus.

eksith• 13 years ago

And other pluses: No sticky carpets, arm-rest hogging neighbors, popcorn munching chickens or any of that bloody annoying running commentary.

If there was one crime punishable by flogging in modern society, it has to be the commentary. If I need any of that, I'll get it on the Blue-ray/DVD straight from the director, thank-you-very-much.

ngoel36• 13 years ago

This is really great! It would be very cool to use this for other things as well (restaurants, sports, etc.)

Small bug - When I Sign In With Facebook and then Cancel, I get a Heroku error.

It would also be nice to see which friends have already liked a movie or some sort of RottenTomatoes integration.

Perceptes• 13 years ago

I get a generic Rails error page. :\

Danilka11• 13 years ago

Yep, dealing with it. Hit the Rotten Tomatoes API limit and they don't have a way of increasing it :-(

Danilka11• 13 years ago

Fixed it!

alpb• 13 years ago

I am getting Heroku error page if I click the button under movies after signing in.

raymondduke• 13 years ago

I think it would be cool to watch them via a hangout like ui. That is, watch a movie while talking to people via webcam. It's not a the greatest idea, but it is more preferable to using FB to be paired with strangers to sit in silence and watch a movie with.

Show HN: Never watch movies alone

Related Stories