Thursday, November 23, 2006
Suggestions to IMDb
Most online folks must be aware of IMDb, the world's largest online database of all movie/TV show related information.
I recently happened to run into a wall trying to do some simple (and rather obvious things).
Let me explain.
Some of you might be aware of the ongoing 37th International Film Festival of India being held in Goa. (http://www.iffigoa.org/)
So, the film festival has attracted a wide selection of films both from domestic as well as international productions. Being away from where the festival is taking place, I couldn't be there in person to soak in some of the interesting stuff being showcased. The next best thing would be to be there 'virtually'. I plan to keep up to some extent by watching some of those movies right here itself. Of course, I'm referring to rental DVDs from Netflix.
I painstakingly extracted and filtered the list of international and domestic feature films in a spreadsheet. Now I had the list of movies that are being shown. Next, I need to know what are their ratings/reviews so that I can prioritise my viewing.
Thi is where I thought of the world's largest online movie database - IMDb.
I registered myself on their site and looked around everywhere. But alas I couldn't find any way to search for multiple movies at a time. Now, with a long list of about 60 movies, it is too slow and tedious to search one at a time.
So, my first suggestion to IMDb is :
SUGGESTION 1 : Make it possible to search for a list of movie titles at a time.
Right, so now if I had the list of movies loaded, I would need to do the next step of ranking them. This feature is provided by IMDb. So, thats good. The next step is renting. This is where IMDb falls short once again. They have plenty of options there for me to purchase a DVD, VHS etc. but alas no way to rent the title.
This brings me to the second idea:
SUGGESTION 2 : Integrate Netflix's database of titles available for rent so that I can directly order from my favourite movies' list.
This case is special, since all the movies I am looking for have something in common. Yes, they are all being shown at the 37th IFFI. Now why doesn't IMDb allow me to search on this particular attribute?
SUGGESTION 3 : Provide searching on the basis of Film Festival where the title was shown.
Also should be able to search for foreign language film, prize winning films etc. at the festival.
SUGGESTION 4 : This is pretty obvious now. IMDb should not only show list of movies at film festivals filtered by some interesting parameters, but should also allow me to add those films to my favourite movies list with a single click. This will complete the integration.
So, I've emailed the good folks at IMDb and am hoping for a positive response. I am happy to give them this idea for free.
I recently happened to run into a wall trying to do some simple (and rather obvious things).
Let me explain.
Some of you might be aware of the ongoing 37th International Film Festival of India being held in Goa. (http://www.iffigoa.org/)
So, the film festival has attracted a wide selection of films both from domestic as well as international productions. Being away from where the festival is taking place, I couldn't be there in person to soak in some of the interesting stuff being showcased. The next best thing would be to be there 'virtually'. I plan to keep up to some extent by watching some of those movies right here itself. Of course, I'm referring to rental DVDs from Netflix.
I painstakingly extracted and filtered the list of international and domestic feature films in a spreadsheet. Now I had the list of movies that are being shown. Next, I need to know what are their ratings/reviews so that I can prioritise my viewing.
Thi is where I thought of the world's largest online movie database - IMDb.
I registered myself on their site and looked around everywhere. But alas I couldn't find any way to search for multiple movies at a time. Now, with a long list of about 60 movies, it is too slow and tedious to search one at a time.
So, my first suggestion to IMDb is :
SUGGESTION 1 : Make it possible to search for a list of movie titles at a time.
Right, so now if I had the list of movies loaded, I would need to do the next step of ranking them. This feature is provided by IMDb. So, thats good. The next step is renting. This is where IMDb falls short once again. They have plenty of options there for me to purchase a DVD, VHS etc. but alas no way to rent the title.
This brings me to the second idea:
SUGGESTION 2 : Integrate Netflix's database of titles available for rent so that I can directly order from my favourite movies' list.
This case is special, since all the movies I am looking for have something in common. Yes, they are all being shown at the 37th IFFI. Now why doesn't IMDb allow me to search on this particular attribute?
SUGGESTION 3 : Provide searching on the basis of Film Festival where the title was shown.
Also should be able to search for foreign language film, prize winning films etc. at the festival.
SUGGESTION 4 : This is pretty obvious now. IMDb should not only show list of movies at film festivals filtered by some interesting parameters, but should also allow me to add those films to my favourite movies list with a single click. This will complete the integration.
So, I've emailed the good folks at IMDb and am hoping for a positive response. I am happy to give them this idea for free.
Labels: film festival imdb netflix
# posted by Tanmoy : 4:34 AM
