wow I love the concept! When I saw the last LOTR movie, I wanted to go pee after the 2nd hour... it was a torture to see all the long ending :) But I will no longer have pain with runpee.com! :P
Nice site (could come in useful), however — why flash/flex?! It just seems so much slower than it could have been (especially since it's such a simple site, HTML + light javascript would have sufficed perfectly…and saved CPU cycles!), and to be honest, the thing which flash excels at, animations, are a bit annoying…
Sadly, another example that execution and vision is very important.
Execution: As stated by mkinsella - it's probably the worst Flash site I've seen in maybe a decade (it duplicates late 90s era HTML frames)
Vision: What is this guy's purpose? To pimp Adobe Flex? He might be building something that people do want but using a technology (Flash) that is fundamentally incompatible with what most people have access to in a movie theater.
"Of course, I pimp Flex big time during the interview [with Leo Laporte on his net@night show]. I'm not sure if they exactly know what Flex is"
However, on a bright note, it demonstrates:
1) A clearly understandable concept/elevator pitch can garner you national-level press coverage.
"A few people here and there heard about it. Like Dave Barry. A producer from NPRs All Things Considered found out about RunPee from Dave’s mention"
2) For all of us who are worried about having a site launch without being perfect: Runpee.com shows that you can launch with a poor implementation of a potentially good concept and still get press if the idea makes sense.
"As to why it’s all Flash and not HTML: well, I have a saying, "Go with what you know." Since I’m a Flash Platform Developer I build everything in Flash - this is actually a Flex application. I had never before created a data driven app when I started RunPee."
3) You can have some hubris, make some mistakes and your concept/site will survive your imperfect personality.
"Maybe, someday, when I’ve made enough money to buy all of the major Hollywood studios. :)"
Damn right. For anyone who hasn't figured it out yet, it is NOT ever ok to use your phone in a cinema during a film, even without sound. I find it unbelievable that so many people haven't figured this out yet. If you can't stand being disconnected for the length of the film then watch it at home.
Thats remarkably accurate. I fell asleep during Wolverine exactly when they said it's appropriate to take a bathroom break. I didn't feel like I missed anything.
I'm surprised to hear such bitching about Flash. Actually, this is one of the few Flash-heavy sites I've seen in recent memory that didn't (a) crash my vintage 2.0.0.20 Firefox running on Fedora Core 4, or (b) warn me that I needed to download a new plugin.
It did, however, break the Back button in an interesting way: after I clicked on "Classic Movies" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark", clicking the Back button several times took me through the pee times of several other random movies.
Funny comments here. If you're actually curious about why the developer used Flash for the front-end, then his info here:
http://runpee.com/blog/72_why-flash
Basically, the rap is that running one set of HTML/JS/CSS instructions atop varied browser brands, with different implementations and edge-cases of those specs, ends up pushing browser-vendor costs onto the backs of content developers.
(And Flash-enabled mobile phones outnumber recalcitrant Apple iPhones by a factor of 40:1 or so. But we at Adobe would still like to support that popular walled-garden, if permission is granted for us to do so.)
28 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 66.7 ms ] threadPlease, FTLoG, don't do this. There's nothing in the website that couldn't be done with normal (D)HTML.
1. Flash?
2. Gratuitous unrevealing of the RTO13'd text is annoying.
3. It's full of trolls already.
Execution: As stated by mkinsella - it's probably the worst Flash site I've seen in maybe a decade (it duplicates late 90s era HTML frames)
Vision: What is this guy's purpose? To pimp Adobe Flex? He might be building something that people do want but using a technology (Flash) that is fundamentally incompatible with what most people have access to in a movie theater.
"Of course, I pimp Flex big time during the interview [with Leo Laporte on his net@night show]. I'm not sure if they exactly know what Flex is"
However, on a bright note, it demonstrates:
1) A clearly understandable concept/elevator pitch can garner you national-level press coverage.
"A few people here and there heard about it. Like Dave Barry. A producer from NPRs All Things Considered found out about RunPee from Dave’s mention"
2) For all of us who are worried about having a site launch without being perfect: Runpee.com shows that you can launch with a poor implementation of a potentially good concept and still get press if the idea makes sense.
"As to why it’s all Flash and not HTML: well, I have a saying, "Go with what you know." Since I’m a Flash Platform Developer I build everything in Flash - this is actually a Flex application. I had never before created a data driven app when I started RunPee."
3) You can have some hubris, make some mistakes and your concept/site will survive your imperfect personality.
"Maybe, someday, when I’ve made enough money to buy all of the major Hollywood studios. :)"
The Flash throws an error on load (only visible if you have the Flash debug player installed), so even if the logic is good, the execution isn't.
Seriously, I almost had to go see a doctor after holding myself in during the second Lord of the Rings movie.
It did, however, break the Back button in an interesting way: after I clicked on "Classic Movies" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark", clicking the Back button several times took me through the pee times of several other random movies.
this needs a lot of work.
Basically, the rap is that running one set of HTML/JS/CSS instructions atop varied browser brands, with different implementations and edge-cases of those specs, ends up pushing browser-vendor costs onto the backs of content developers.
(And Flash-enabled mobile phones outnumber recalcitrant Apple iPhones by a factor of 40:1 or so. But we at Adobe would still like to support that popular walled-garden, if permission is granted for us to do so.)
jd/adobe