Show HN: Netflix Showdown – because I can't decide what to watch

http://netflix.tinj.com

by flipside • 13 years ago

37 38 13 years ago

netflix.tinj.com

RKoutnik• 13 years ago

I really like the timer concept here. Too often I've found that suggestion services just serve to further choice paralysis. The timer adds a time imperative that overrides my usual action of overanalyzing everything.

flipside11• 13 years ago

glad you like it! paradox of choice all the way, the time constraint helps people expend more energy over a short period of time

rsl7• 13 years ago

Can you elaborate on choice paralysis? What is really at play here - that you are worried you will have wasted time with a bad movie?

marquis• 13 years ago

I have a trick I do: flip a coin to decide. You tend to make a decision before the coin lands, rather than have blind fate make the choice for you.

flipside11• 13 years ago

The opportunity to "decide in the air" is one of the things that's missing from "feeling lucky" recommendations, too much happens in that one step.

Pro_bity• 13 years ago

This is a cool extension that acts as a nice forcing function for my indecisiveness. Nice job.

flipside11• 13 years ago

hacking around indecisiveness ftw!

jayzalowitz• 13 years ago

Going to netflix.com after installing this is the shit.

podman• 13 years ago

Seems kind of similar to Max, from Netflix themselves: http://blog.netflix.com/2013/06/let-max-be-your-netflix-guid...

Although I really only watch on my TV and not my computer, I like the concept and it seems well implemented. Cracking the nut of figuring out what to watch is a tough one, that's for sure. Good luck!

flipside11• 13 years ago

I came up with the basic idea for showdown about a week before they posted that.

Lots of opportunity in the space, decided to build a chrome extension because Netflix doesn't allow new API access anymore...

flipside11• 13 years ago

Hey HN, the chrome extension is about 3 days of work at this point but mobile/web versions are in the works.

Lot's more cool stuff planned and feedback welcome!

ak2webd3• 13 years ago

way better than Max

ismaelc• 13 years ago

Can you add a way to cancel the final showdown timer? Like Escape to clear the window?

flipside11• 13 years ago

Gonna add an autoplay checkbox and bail button tonight!

ode• 13 years ago

Wish it worked with http://instantwatcher.com

flipside11• 13 years ago

Added to my todo list, thanks for the suggestion!

trentmb• 13 years ago

I really wish netflix would let me create 'channels.'

I wish I could pick 5 or 6 television series, group them together, and just hit 'play random.' Netflix then randomly selects an episode from one of the series, then plays it!

orenmazor• 13 years ago

I've wanted this for a while, but I'm betting licensing is going to get messy there.

I'd be happy with just a "watch random shows from this tv category".

BinaryBrainz• 13 years ago

If we take your idea and added a mechanism that plays new episodes (from those pre-selected series) at a user-designated primetime showing, I think we would have a winner.

Why can't one of these services just give us our own legit pseudo-channel? (Hulu???) BTW, you can sort-of do this with a combination of XBMC, a few plugins (mainly pseudoTV), Couchpotato, Sickbeard and a good tracker, but it is way too much of a headache to setup and maintain.

gcb03• 13 years ago

how difficult it is selecting one item from your list?

the problem is finding anything worth of moving to your list.

gedrap• 13 years ago

I have this problem for years. Sometimes I spend so much time 'deciding' what to watch, that it gets too late to watch. While actually anything in the given genre, not longer than XYZ minutes and with rotten tomatoes/imdb rating about X would do. Here you have an idea for a project... Eliminate annoying daily choices. Oh how many times I went to buy trousers, couldn't choose from dozens, went to other store where they have 2-3 styles and about 3-4 colors each and bought in a couple of minutes. And etc.

gcb03• 13 years ago

Do you really think netflix wouldn't have solved that yet?

the problem is not that you are not finding what to watch. The real problem is that there is NOTHING LEFT to watch.

their inventory sucks. Yeah, they have a couple movies, but chances are you've seen them all already.

Netflix is not a blockbuster/torrent/movie theater replacement. It is a TV replacement.

It works for people that sit down, select from the few series they are following, and press play.

It may work as a movie provider for the first 2 months, until you get to the point mentioned above; you've seen them all.

jimbobimbo• 13 years ago

Oh, for Christ's sake! Netflix has a huge DVD/BD library. I actually have DVD queue twice as long as streaming. There's always something to watch.

flipside11• 13 years ago

Paradox of Choice is a well documented phenomenon. http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...

Many people (me included) aren't willing to spend sufficient mental energy on a decision based on what's available when we want to be entertained.

A related problem is that Netflix does a bad job of managing expectations, but we're working on that with tinj.

flipside11• 13 years ago

Thanks for the validation! We're actually out to solve that problem for movies, this is just the start. Should have another product announcement in a week or so.

Give us a few years and we'll get to trousers too.

mentos• 13 years ago

Its a funny phenomenon where you'll sit through 3 hours of movie+commercials to watch 'Tommy Boy' for the twenty something time on cable but you'd never seek it out on Netflix.

I really think some sort of 'channel' on Netflix where movies just play and you can tune in would catch on. Something about knowing other people are out there watching the same thing..

ck2• 13 years ago

http://instantwatcher.com/genres

satjot• 13 years ago

I just used and am now going to actually watch a movie instead of wasting time deciding and falling asleep.

raghavneesh• 13 years ago

Why dont you use movies recommendation services. I like http://metataste.com very much. It may not have good interface, but way better recommendations then netflix.

dccoolgai• 13 years ago

I've gotten into a phase recently where I am obsessed with dark BBC comedies I had never heard of like Snuff Box and League of Gentleman. I found them just random-surfing on Netflix.

taylorhou• 13 years ago

was this started or prototyped at a 3daystartup?

flipside11• 13 years ago

I built v0 at the TV of Tomorrow Hackathon (http://hack.tvot.tv) in June, v0.1.1 at Disrupt SF Hackathon 2013 in September, and cleaned it up over the last 48 hours instead of sleeping.

micampe2• 13 years ago

The link says I can't use it because it's a Chrome app, which, as far as I know, is nothing more than a website artificially constrained so that I can't use it on an iPad or any browser that is not Chrome.

This seems worse than Flash websites, what are the advantages for developers or users? They are built using web technologies anyway, why restrict your audience?

tokenizerrr• 13 years ago

It's a browser extension that modifies the netflix page in-browser. There is a difference between Chrome extensions and Chrome apps, extensions run in the background and usually provide an icon with information or modify pages or perform some resident task. The apps are, somewhat as you say, a glorified webpage making use of special chrome APIs [1] to offer functionality that is not possible on regular web pages.

[1] http://developer.chrome.com/apps/api_index.html

micampe2• 13 years ago

I see, thanks. Just a very poor error message then.

flipside11• 13 years ago

If you can think of an easier way to hack Netflix without an API key (which they don't give out anymore), I'd love to hear it!

Don't worry, this is just the start. Big things have small beginnings.

Show HN: Netflix Showdown – because I can't decide what to watch

Related Stories