HN Explorer

Please tell me, Am I there yet?

4 points by yousuffauzan ↗ HN
I launched CinEight, a movie recommendation site which helps user to manage their movies too, a couple of months ago. The response I got was not all that great. So I put it on the back-burner while I got busy with my job and other projects. Finally around mid december, I got some time to revisit the project and I decided to integrate it with facebook. I am not on facebook and have very little understanding of social networks in general.

Anyway, the app is finally out (http://apps.facebook.com/cineight). Its just my main site shown inside facebook. I do not know if this is the right approach.

The basic idea behind the app was to help people like me, who watch a lot of movies, find a place where they can manage their movie lists and get to know about which movies they may like to watch next. So apart from following people who I think have a similar taste in movies as me, I can also keep a track of movies I have watched in various All-Time best movie lists (Palme d'Or winners, TIme ALL-TIME 100, IMDB 250 etc).

It will be great if you guys would help me in deciding what features should my app have now that its on facebook (Social features, things that users like doing on facebook etc.)

The most important question is whether I should start spreading the word around or wait and add new features and polish the app some more. Basically, In your opinion, Am I there yet? If not, what do you reckon I should do, if yes, then what do you reckon I should do?

Thanks in advance.

http://apps.facebook.com/cineight

10 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 33.6 ms ] thread
noodle
can people successfully sign up, use the app, find it useful, and want to return to use it again some time in the future?

if yes, then you're there. don't overcomplicate it.

yousuffauzan
Thats the million dollar question. How to know if the app has breached that level of usefulness where user will want to come back? Hence the urge to blindly add more and more features.

If you are a movie buff, would you come back to the app?

noodle
personally and honestly, no, because it doesn't appear to be breaking any new ground in terms of functionality. i've seen plenty of similar movie apps in the past. if it is doing something new and different, i'm not seeing or perceiving it. people in general might use it, though.

to me, it would be new and interesting if you set up something that looked through my friends, saw what movies they liked, and produced an automatic recontamination list based off of that.

yousuffauzan
Thanks for that advice. I have been debating over a similar feature for a while. I will try to build it ASAP and intimate you about it.
fezzl
I was redirected to a confusing page the moment after I clicked Allow. There was no clear call to action, except to explore/follow some users on the top-right corner. How can I start making my list? Is there somewhere that I can browse all the movies on your database, and then annotate them according to whether I've seen it, not seen it, etc.?

My suggestion is to suggest a few movies to the user right from the get-go, so they can start making their list immediately. Also, make a viral loop: say, let people share their movie list on their Facebook profiles and entice their friends to make and share their lists, which in turn creates a viral marketing cycle.

Last but not least, if you're going to build a Facebook app for the Facebook demographic, you really need to hang out more on Facebook.

All the best.

yousuffauzan
I think I will put some links for users to help them start building their movie lists (Movies watched, Movies you want to watch, and movies which in your opinion are trash).

I guess one way would be to show user say IMDB 250 list or any other such All Time list.

Plus the thing you said about getting viral. I will need to come up with a way to do that. Sharing list is definitely one of them. I also integrated FB Like for all movies which may help in spreading the word.

yousuffauzan
Just a followup on how you start building your lists. You can visit profile page of users mentioned on the top right. Or you can visit any of the "Lists" present on the header section. You can search for a movie you wish to recommend too.
fezzl
Sure, but searching involves typing and will cause a huge drop-off in users. A better alternative might be a live real-time news feed, i.e. User A has just added Movie X to his recommendation list, User B has just created a movie list containing movies Y, Z, etc. The point is to give the impression of activity as well as immediate avenue for the user to start using your app.

Why would you sandbox your app in Facebook anyway? Is there any particular reason for putting it in an iframe on Facebook?

yousuffauzan
The "Roll" tab is in fact a news feed. However, since you are noy following anyone yet, there is no news to show. I need another way to make these updates though.

The app is basically a stand alone web app. And Iframe seemed to be the most painless way of integrating it with facebook. It was laziness and not any strategy which led me to decide on Iframe.