Show HN: Never watch movies alone | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Never watch movies alone

gotcompany.net

54 pointsDanilka37 comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

People like being alone together.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

When are you guys rolling out in Sweden? Would be a fun way to go on dates.

The online dating space here is pretty terrible in general, we could really use some innovation...

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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).

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

It will email you, when the match is found.

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

Make an About page to explain what the site does.

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?

It'll emai you when the match is found.

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

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.

I get a generic Rails error page. :\

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

Fixed it!

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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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