Nice idea overall, it is really annoying to follow all the shows I usually watch.
First suggestion - somehow differentiate between shows that are currently airing, postponed, and canceled/finished. There is no point in following Fringe, for example, however there is a point in 'liking' it in order to get better recommendations.
The point behind following the show would would be if you never saw it before. For instance, if I just started watching fringe, I would have multiple seasons to go through since I have never seen it before- I can still use the sites 'watched' feature per episode, to know where I left off.
I see your point, but for me 'following' the show means getting notifications about when the new episode comes out. What's the point in following when it does not move anywhere. In any case, this is an argument about terminology. I would have used something different for shows that will not be aired anymore.
BTW, this is what I used before - http://eztv.it/showlist/
I find this status page to be quite useful, however I have to check manually every time if new episode came out.
I agree with the previous commenter that, perhaps, you could separate out "like" (to get recommendations) and "follow" (to get future updates) actions.
When I first signed up, I followed only shows that will have future episodes, but I'd love my past favourite shows to impact recommendations.
I've been using followshows for some months now and I'm very satisfied overall. It's quite useful for keeping track of shows regardless of where I watch them.
There have been some issues with double items in the queue for some shows. For example, seasons 11 and 13 have the same episodes here:
This is pretty much exactly the kind of site I was looking for a few years back and couldn't find, so I started to work on my own (but never got very far). Let me see if I can come up with a few of my ideas:
Allow me to tell my followshows friends why I liked a show. I don't always want to tweet it out or post to Facebook, but I do want people who see I follow a show to know what I think of it. Or I want to be able to look at a show page and see which of my friends already have opinions about it.
Show me trends among my friends. If lots of them start following a new show, I might want to check it out.
Be aggressive about adding shows that aren't in TVRage or TheTVDB yet. I want to follow that Star Wars live action show right now, and see more info when it's available. Add shows the moment the upfronts announce them. Heck, even introduce a category of speculative shows where it's not clear if they'll ever air.
Email me a reminder when shows come back. I see you've got an RSS and calendar feed, but it would be nice to get a weekly summary for stuff like 'Hey, Game of Thrones is back next week!' or 'Star Wars has a premiere date!'
Really bummed you posted to Facebook by default when I just used it for authentication. That should not have been on automatically.
Feel free to let me know if I can help out: @joostschuur.
Here's the perfect example for one of my suggestions: I just went to the pogdesign/cat site and saw there's an Under the Dome series coming up, but not for another 4 months. Can't add it to followshows yet though to get reminded about it closer to its air date.
1. The name doesn't suggest I can watch shows (rather, just a reminder service)
2. Asked to login/register without being able to try/see the experience makes me close the tab - I haven't found out yet whether I like the service, why would I sign up?
We try to do that with screenshots, but you can imagine the process of tracking/watching shows without a account might be frisky since we could only base it on a cookie. I might try that though and let them convert afterwards
Yeah, I also need more information before I sign up. There isn't anything that tells me about the sources of the shows, the genre/region of shows, the availability of shows I care about, etc.
I would suggest a "How it works?" section or something.
but when it says 'watch online' - does that mean it's only going to help me track shows that are freely pirated online? I just want to get an email when Game of Thrones starts again for instance, or Dr Who: how will that work? I don't want to watch them on the web even.
I don't have cable, so I will be watching it at a friends house. I just need an email telling me it will be on soon so I can invite myself over ahead of time ;)
I was thinking of writing an iPad app that does a "synced" viewing of a video for two geographically separated people. The movies would play at very close to the same time, and pausing one app would pause the other. It would be for people in long distance relationships.
They have more upcoming shows, so I can follow some promising shows when I hear about them and they'll show in my calendar half year later when they start running. I have four upcoming shows on pogdesign that weren't found here.
I selected my time zone when signing up, only to be disappointed that all dates and times in the calendar are still in the US time. I live in Europe so the difference usually means it's already next day here when the shows are aired. pogdesign can handle that.
Other than that, this looks pretty neat. Recommended shows seems well-chosen but I'd like to have “not interested” button so that the show would be hidden and another one would jump in.
Keep up the good work and fix the problems mentioned above and I'll switch!
I don't miss episodes. I'm also relatively unconcerned about MPAA stuff.
I bought Automatic after a 2 week trial. I have it downloading on 15 minute intervals from tvtorrents.com (from the UK, while I'm US), based on my "New Favorites" custom account RSS feed. I specify some words to match a show's title, get the format I want (match ".mp4") and exclude ones I don't. (Don't match "720p", don't match "mkv".) The torrents get downloaded to a directory, where Transmission automatically detects and starts downloading them.
The result: Shows appear in Air Video on my iPad, and I only press an entry in a list (Table View) to watch them. My "karma" (called gigacredits) on tvtorrents.com basically takes care of itself because I start downloading when a bunch of other people are also doing so.
That said, TVTorrents.com is a bit clunky. (Along the lines of "2003 called. Wants its Java app server and web design back.")
Really? This is a bit suspicious that I was downvoted, then.
The front page says, "Watch TV Shows in your Browser," and "Easily know when your shows are on next." Other headline-sized text on the front page basically reiterates those two points. That functionality is basically already served by the setup I describe. (TVTorrents + Automatic + Transmission + AirVideo.) I would rather watch TV on my iPad on the couch or on my bed than in front of the PC. I also get the "Know when the next show is" in just a few clicks.
If anything, my story points out a packaging issue, which may well be an opportunity. Only a programmer like me is going to stitch together the functionality of four apps to get the same effect. Let someone download a single tablet app, maybe download a "server" on their PC, and it all just works. There's issues doing this on the iPad, because of what Apple might or might not allow, especially with regards to torrents.
As it is, it looks like someone wanting to promote the site downvoted me to suppress competition. Not very cool, if that's the case.
While I'm not a fan of discussions about downvoting in HN comments, I did downvote him because I felt like blatantly admitting to downloading TV shows with no further comments on the site in question didn't really help the discussion at all.
In retrospect, perhaps the takeaway from the comment is that there's a certain category of potential user who will hear about the site, have a preconceived idea of what it might offer based on the name, and then look for that functionality.
> I did downvote him because I felt like blatantly admitting to downloading TV shows with no further comments on the site in question didn't really help the discussion at all.
Because, you know, comparative functionality of media is never of any use -- especially if it's to the "free/not-exactly-legal" part of the Internet.
I just found out about the site today. I thought about a site like this a while back, but wasn't able to build it myself, so I'm happy to see someone implement it in such an elegant interface.
Enough about me though. This thread is an opportunity for Dan and his co-creators to get feedback on what they've built.
The site is about tracking the shows you watch and when there's new episodes, and providing links where you can legally stream or purchase episodes.
It looks to me like the people behind the site are attempting to create a legitimate web site that isn't limited to hiding their identities or living in another country, where it's easier to flaunt copyright laws.
Personally, I don't take issue one way or the other with people who provide automated tools to get their TV shows through alternate means, but the moment you do that, you limit options for the product you're trying to build, be it just for fun or even profit.
> isn't limited to hiding their identities or living in another country
Cause, you know, it's so hard to sign up for an account on a website in another country over the Internet. A good point you got there. Sounds nothing like FUD.
> provide automated tools to get their TV shows through alternate means, but the moment you do that, you limit options for the product you're trying to build
This is one area where there is a clear advantage to releasing on Android over iOS.
>> isn't limited to hiding their identities or living in another country
> Cause, you know, it's so hard to sign up for an account on a website in another country over the Internet. A good point you got there. Sounds nothing like FUD.
Please don't do that. Your snark is not constructive, doesn't help the discussion and reduces the signal-to-noise ratio.
If you reread jschuur's sentence with the parts you left out of your quote you will see that he is referring to the owners of the site not having to live in another country. There have been a few cases of prosecuted owners and admins of similar sites in UK and US recently.
Well, I am biased but I think the interface is years ahead. I feel like I am on geocities/myspace on sidereel. We also have many unique features not present on there.
I receive errors when trying to login with facebook. I want to be able to test this service without being a member like http://www.pogdesign.co.uk/cat/
I have closed the tab sadly though i'd love to use it if given the chance.
I tried to login with Facebook, and was prompted to make a password anyway. Doesn't this seem to defeat the point of having OAuth sign-in in the first place? I don't want to remember your password, and you've already got my login tokens, so I shouldn't need to.
I use http://mytvrss.com (no affiliation). You check off the shows you watch and it creates a customized RSS feed for you. Combined with Google Reader I never miss a show.
Just signed up. The main reason of signing up is to check your recommendation quality. Will check when have more time. A calendar showing episodes airing date is a good feature.
Looks nice graphically, but it still doesn't solve my problem of automatically finding a torrent and downloading. Also, I don't want to register for yet another site that keeps track of some stuff for me, and I'd like to watch my shows on the TV instead of on a computer.
It's a chrome plugin, that automatically shows you the magnet link with he most result from a TPB mirror whenever an episode of your favorite tv shows came out. Click that magnet link and it' ll be picked up by your favorite torrent client.
This takes the hassle out of the wole process for me:
- Get notified
- Track what you have already downloaded
- Find a TPB mirror that works, execute search, sort by most seeds
I've also included a general TPB search to just find the most-seeding torrent for any search term.
62 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 128 ms ] threadFirst suggestion - somehow differentiate between shows that are currently airing, postponed, and canceled/finished. There is no point in following Fringe, for example, however there is a point in 'liking' it in order to get better recommendations.
BTW, this is what I used before - http://eztv.it/showlist/ I find this status page to be quite useful, however I have to check manually every time if new episode came out.
http://followshows.com/settings
When I first signed up, I followed only shows that will have future episodes, but I'd love my past favourite shows to impact recommendations.
There have been some issues with double items in the queue for some shows. For example, seasons 11 and 13 have the same episodes here:
http://followshows.com/show/Naruto-Shippuuden/episodes
Minor issues aside, thanks for the nice app!
Allow me to tell my followshows friends why I liked a show. I don't always want to tweet it out or post to Facebook, but I do want people who see I follow a show to know what I think of it. Or I want to be able to look at a show page and see which of my friends already have opinions about it.
Show me trends among my friends. If lots of them start following a new show, I might want to check it out.
Be aggressive about adding shows that aren't in TVRage or TheTVDB yet. I want to follow that Star Wars live action show right now, and see more info when it's available. Add shows the moment the upfronts announce them. Heck, even introduce a category of speculative shows where it's not clear if they'll ever air.
Email me a reminder when shows come back. I see you've got an RSS and calendar feed, but it would be nice to get a weekly summary for stuff like 'Hey, Game of Thrones is back next week!' or 'Star Wars has a premiere date!'
Really bummed you posted to Facebook by default when I just used it for authentication. That should not have been on automatically.
Feel free to let me know if I can help out: @joostschuur.
1. The name doesn't suggest I can watch shows (rather, just a reminder service)
2. Asked to login/register without being able to try/see the experience makes me close the tab - I haven't found out yet whether I like the service, why would I sign up?
I would suggest a "How it works?" section or something.
http://i.imgur.com/rwapTVk.jpg
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5185974
As it is, Colbert Report and Daily Show just appear for me.
They have more upcoming shows, so I can follow some promising shows when I hear about them and they'll show in my calendar half year later when they start running. I have four upcoming shows on pogdesign that weren't found here.
I selected my time zone when signing up, only to be disappointed that all dates and times in the calendar are still in the US time. I live in Europe so the difference usually means it's already next day here when the shows are aired. pogdesign can handle that.
Other than that, this looks pretty neat. Recommended shows seems well-chosen but I'd like to have “not interested” button so that the show would be hidden and another one would jump in.
Keep up the good work and fix the problems mentioned above and I'll switch!
We need to find a way to be more proactive when adding new shows to our database, we're on it.
Will work on the other suggestions as well- Thanks!
I bought Automatic after a 2 week trial. I have it downloading on 15 minute intervals from tvtorrents.com (from the UK, while I'm US), based on my "New Favorites" custom account RSS feed. I specify some words to match a show's title, get the format I want (match ".mp4") and exclude ones I don't. (Don't match "720p", don't match "mkv".) The torrents get downloaded to a directory, where Transmission automatically detects and starts downloading them.
The result: Shows appear in Air Video on my iPad, and I only press an entry in a list (Table View) to watch them. My "karma" (called gigacredits) on tvtorrents.com basically takes care of itself because I start downloading when a bunch of other people are also doing so.
That said, TVTorrents.com is a bit clunky. (Along the lines of "2003 called. Wants its Java app server and web design back.")
The front page says, "Watch TV Shows in your Browser," and "Easily know when your shows are on next." Other headline-sized text on the front page basically reiterates those two points. That functionality is basically already served by the setup I describe. (TVTorrents + Automatic + Transmission + AirVideo.) I would rather watch TV on my iPad on the couch or on my bed than in front of the PC. I also get the "Know when the next show is" in just a few clicks.
If anything, my story points out a packaging issue, which may well be an opportunity. Only a programmer like me is going to stitch together the functionality of four apps to get the same effect. Let someone download a single tablet app, maybe download a "server" on their PC, and it all just works. There's issues doing this on the iPad, because of what Apple might or might not allow, especially with regards to torrents.
As it is, it looks like someone wanting to promote the site downvoted me to suppress competition. Not very cool, if that's the case.
In retrospect, perhaps the takeaway from the comment is that there's a certain category of potential user who will hear about the site, have a preconceived idea of what it might offer based on the name, and then look for that functionality.
Because, you know, comparative functionality of media is never of any use -- especially if it's to the "free/not-exactly-legal" part of the Internet.
Enough about me though. This thread is an opportunity for Dan and his co-creators to get feedback on what they've built.
It looks to me like the people behind the site are attempting to create a legitimate web site that isn't limited to hiding their identities or living in another country, where it's easier to flaunt copyright laws.
Personally, I don't take issue one way or the other with people who provide automated tools to get their TV shows through alternate means, but the moment you do that, you limit options for the product you're trying to build, be it just for fun or even profit.
Cause, you know, it's so hard to sign up for an account on a website in another country over the Internet. A good point you got there. Sounds nothing like FUD.
> provide automated tools to get their TV shows through alternate means, but the moment you do that, you limit options for the product you're trying to build
This is one area where there is a clear advantage to releasing on Android over iOS.
> Cause, you know, it's so hard to sign up for an account on a website in another country over the Internet. A good point you got there. Sounds nothing like FUD.
Please don't do that. Your snark is not constructive, doesn't help the discussion and reduces the signal-to-noise ratio.
If you reread jschuur's sentence with the parts you left out of your quote you will see that he is referring to the owners of the site not having to live in another country. There have been a few cases of prosecuted owners and admins of similar sites in UK and US recently.
I have closed the tab sadly though i'd love to use it if given the chance.
also: is it possible to delete my account?
I've submitted my own solution for this a to HN a couple months ago: http://schizoduckie.github.com/seriesguide-chrome/
It's a chrome plugin, that automatically shows you the magnet link with he most result from a TPB mirror whenever an episode of your favorite tv shows came out. Click that magnet link and it' ll be picked up by your favorite torrent client. This takes the hassle out of the wole process for me: - Get notified - Track what you have already downloaded - Find a TPB mirror that works, execute search, sort by most seeds
I've also included a general TPB search to just find the most-seeding torrent for any search term.