Google Adds Movie Ratings, Times, Reviews 235
Mike Skweir writes " I was going to take my daughter to the movies this afternoon and I
wanted to find out more about the movie 'Kicking & Screaming'... so I Googled
it. To my surprise the following
response occurred . When I followed the
link, it actually gave me several reviews, movie ratings and the ability to
search for a theatre in my area." Once you've entered your zip code, it will also tell you what movies are playing in your area.
another google innovation (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:another google innovation (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, and now "THEY" know your zip code. (Score:2, Insightful)
Zonk: Once you've entered your zip code, it will also tell you what movies are playing in your area.
zetasmack: google knows all. do not question.
Today you've entered your zip code into the largest database in the history of the human species, and it's been cross-correlated with the Google cookie on your hard drive.
Tomorrow you're gonna enter what? Your phone number? Your home address? Your SSN? Your vote for president?
Some day you people are gonna yearn for an earlier, simpler time, when people
Re:Yeah, and now "THEY" know your zip code. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yeah, and now "THEY" know your zip code. (Score:2, Insightful)
What? Does Google steal your zip code without your consent?
No, you give your zip code if you choose to do it. You can still choose to use the Google movie service without giving your zip code; or even not to use it at all.
google knows all. do not question. (Score:2, Insightful)
Shouldn't that be Yahoo! knows all? Afterall they've been doing this for years. Speaking of Google and Yahoo!, Yahoo! was one of the original investers in Google before the IPO.
Falconaltavista was top dog of searches (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, Altavista was my prefered search engine for years. Now most of the tyme I start with Google but occasionally I'll go with About, especially when it comes to archeology and anthropology or photography as About has really good sections on these. When Google doesn't do it for me I'll then go to Dmoz, Teoma, or Mooter.
FalconRe:another google innovation (Score:4, Interesting)
Arkwright (Score:2)
Next? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Next? (Score:2)
I feel that if Google did such a thing, they would have to charge (promoter fees, etc), or they would simply show you to the concert places' websites. Either way, someone has to pay to advertise...and given Google's fame, that would be quite a profitable avenue for them to pursue.
Sounds Handy... (Score:2, Interesting)
Such a Great Way to Market (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Such a Great Way to Market (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but how often does *that* happen?
Re:Such a Great Way to Market (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Such a Great Way to Market (Score:5, Insightful)
It's curious how Google repeatedly stumbles into extreme success. Early on, they decided to go with low-key text-based ads, not because they thought they'd be more successful than banner ads, but because the people making the decision hated pages with banner ads. We all know how that turned out -- it's the main reason Google turned a profit as early as it did.
Jeez, as I'm typing this there is this really annoying animated New Egg banner at the top of my Slashdot window. Some people never learn!
Re:Such a Great Way to Market (Score:4, Insightful)
And there you have it. Right now, the folks making the decisions are folks that think like us. Google still has a really geeky aura surrouding it. Who knows, some day the marketing droids might take over and it's back to the drawing board, but until then...
Re:Such a Great Way to Market (Score:5, Interesting)
My theory is this: people are so inundated with advertising that they need a mechanism to filter them out, to keep from getting distracted to death. Most people seem to be adept and creating little cognitive filters to eliminate distraction. (Geeks, by and large, seem to be pretty poor at this -- I've often wondered if there isn't some neurological difference between Geeks and "normal" people.) So most people litterally don't see most of the ads that are thrown at them every day.
But by trying to make their ads less obnoxious, Google removed all the visual cues that these cognitive filters rely on. Which is why market research indicates that most people don't perceive Google ads as ads, even though they're clearly labeled as such! In other words, Google found a way to get past people's ant-ad wetware -- and found it purely by accident.
Re:Such a Great Way to Market (Score:2)
Oh come off it already. When the fuck will Slashdotters realize that just like in EVERY OTHER FUCKING INDUSTRY there are good professionals, and bad professionals.
Marketing is the same as any other industry. Sure, you have your sleazy people who will do whatever they can to get eyeballs and a buck, but then you have your talented people who know exactly what they're doing, who don't want to al
Re:Such a Great Way to Market (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Such a Great Way to Market (Score:2)
You're right. Some people [mozdev.org] never learn.
Re:Such a Great Way to Market (Score:2)
Microsoft has as many good ideas as Google; unfortunetly they put money first.
Sorry you couldn't figure out the puzzles to send an application to Google Corp.
Oh, isn't that old? (Score:5, Insightful)
I might add that there is some (currently unused) synergy to http://video.google.com/ [google.com] . There is no reason not to extend google video to movie texts.
Re:Oh, isn't that old? (Score:2)
Re:Oh, isn't that old? (Score:2)
Re:Oh, isn't that old? (Score:5, Interesting)
Use google to find a movie that might be worth the money you will be spending.
Use google to find a movie theatre that has the movie on schedule.
Use google's orkut or google's newly aquired dodgeball [dodgeball.com] to find someone to join your movie evening.
Use google ride [google.com] to order a cab to the movie theatre.
Use google groups to discuss the result of the evening.
So, if google was smart, they would enhance their APIs to encourage people to combine different google applications. My first attempt would be something like a google timewaster/blinddate/"hey, I'm new in this town, are there real people around?"/... Or is this something labs.google.com will provide in the next six months? and so on... I'm tired of this "what if google did a, b, c" I would like to do it myself.
Re:Oh, isn't that old? (Score:2)
hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
Re:hmmmm (Score:2)
Another feature of the search (Score:5, Informative)
Too bad their information is incomplete (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, they seem to be using some other service which has incomplete records and doesn't even list some of my local theaters.
Compare for yourself by doing a search on moviefone or yahoo, and then check google.
Data collection... (Score:4, Insightful)
-Ben
Re:Data collection... (Score:2, Insightful)
How many of those impulse searches you've made on google will tell your friends about ?
Also, you can search by plot!!! (Score:5, Informative)
e.g. searching for Future world [google.com] (or google "movies: future world") comes up with a decent list, with "Twelve Monkeys" on 1st and "Minority Report" as second!
Re:Also, you can search by plot!!! (Score:2)
Unless you are searching for a porno flick in which case you'll have to remember the name.
underwhelmed. (Score:2)
Until it comes up with this [imdb.com] I'll stick with IMDB, thank you. Reviews for blockbusters are a dime a dozen, and showtimes on another continent do nothing for me.
Google (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Google (Score:4, Funny)
Good. (Score:2)
Re:Google (Score:2, Funny)
its called Gmail.
Bye Bye Fandango (Score:3, Insightful)
The only thing it does now is sell tickets, but who really wants to buy movie tickets online?
Onward Google, onward! Search
Re:Bye Bye Fandango (Score:5, Insightful)
I would. Walking right past the line is actually pretty nice. But I don't want to pay a dollar over box office for the privilege. Since Fandango is *more* efficient than paying teenagers six bucks an hour to hand out tickets from those little bulletproof booths, it should cost *less*.
Weird how that concept has been lost on the big chains so far.
Re:Bye Bye Fandango (Score:2)
I think you've missed the reason; it's because you get to walk right past the line that you pay a dollar over box office. Efficiency has nothing to do with it, they do the same with telephone advance booking here. Because you get to g
Re:Bye Bye Fandango (Score:2)
If you're just concerned about walking past the lines, try and see if your local theatre has one of the automated consoles. Just choose the tickets you want, swipe your credit card, and -- presto! -- instantly printed tickets with no service charge.
At the Sony Metreon in San Francisco, practically nobody uses the consoles, so there's never a line.
Sometimes you pay for convenience.. (Score:2)
I pay more for a soda at a CONVENIENCE store than a box store/grocery store, so why wouldn't that apply to other services that offer a CONVENIENCE.
Just because it's online doesn't mean it's any cheaper to offer than paying someone 6 bucks to site in a "bullet proof box" as last time i checked engineers, sysadmins, webmasters and developers were a LOT more
Re: (Score:2)
Yahoo has the same feature (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yahoo has the same feature (Score:2)
Google SMS (Score:5, Informative)
I'm rather surprised that it sounds like Google SMS got something before the mainstream Google web did.
Still, very cool. I *heart* Google.
Inconsistent Behaviour (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder why this is so but, oh well, Google is all-wise!
Re:Inconsistent Behaviour (Score:2)
It appears that Google is only reporting movies that are currently playing in theaters.
If you're really that set on making sure they're giving proper respect to Natalie Portman, you might want to try this link. [google.com]
Re:Inconsistent Behaviour (Score:2)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=movie%
Re:Inconsistent Behaviour (Score:2)
I like the interface a lot more than rottentomatoes.com, which does the same thing. It's very clean and easy to read.
D
Re:Inconsistent Behaviour (Score:2)
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [google.com]
We need an Ask Slashdot... (Score:2)
Sure, I have purchased lots of stuff online, but I can't say that any content sponsering ad has ever "grabbed" me. Of course, as far as I know, traditional media ads don't affect me either, but I understand research shows that they "work".
Is it the same with online ads - has the net fallen into being the same as traditional media, with the same statistical influence of ad copy on the masse
Re:We need an Ask Slashdot... (Score:2)
You know, I wouldn't say I respond directly to commercials; that is to say, I don't see an ad for Pizza Hut and reach for the phone.
But I will say this: if I'm on vacation, and I see a Pizza Hut sitting next to something called Big Antonio's Pizza... I'll probably pick door #1.
And that's probably the advertising at work.
Re:We need an Ask Slashdot... (Score:2)
This is news? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, the Google movie/local search has been working for months! Slashdot link from Feb 23rd here [slashdot.org] In fact, the IMDB link has been there from the start. It amazes me when some parent finds out about Google's "new" 3 month old feature, they think it's new, and news worthy to boot. Whoopty do, next headline: "New feature, Google aggregates data!!" No kidding? As usual, good ol' /. dupe checking works it's magic! :)
Not to dis Google or anything, but since when is every minuscule innovation on web based portals revolutionary? Endless "betas" and rapid cash burns to develop the next biggest thing is what turned the dot-com boom into a bust. Is Google next? Nah, there's no competition in the search engine market. Hehe.
Sure, people love Google, I love Google, but this stuff is something Yahoo has been doing for 10 years and people are atingle over it like its new technology!? Innovation only leads to more complex interfaces, and the simplicity of Google's very nature will only become bulkier and bloated the more of this "crap" they add. What, links to outside review services just weren't enough? Creature Feep if you ask me.
Good Timing (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand that some dupes slip through because certain topics can be hard to search for, but with the first Google movies story [slashdot.org] showing up as the topmost search result for "Google movies [slashdot.org]," how is it even possible not to find that this story was already posted?
I had read Slashdot almost daily for years, and subscribed for months. These days, thanks to the drastic downtown in quality, I'm down to visiting just a few times a week, and haven't added to my subscription in a year.
THIS IS NOT A DUPE (Score:2)
However, this story points out that that keyword is no longer needed, if you just search for a movie title of a currently playing movie, it comes up with that info in the results.
Re:Good Timing (Score:2)
This [slashdot.org] is a pretty good example of what I was talking about. I don't think anyone can argue that there's any real news in that story. It's just some guy driving traffic to his new site.
I'm glad to see someone over there is reading comments like mine, anyhow.
Google does it again (Score:2)
So long AOL. Competition is a good thing.
Does it have movie prices? (Score:2)
My Regal Cinema down the street dropped the matinee times from any movie starting before 5pm to 3pm and upped the price from 5.50 to 7.00 - the regular price from 8.00 to 9.25 while some theatres down the street (older) are down to 4.50 regular - I'd like to know these things w/o checking out every stupid theatre in the area.
Eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
really?! (Score:2, Funny)
This was covered on slashdot in like, 1970 when it first happened...
But does it have a link to the torrent file? (Score:2)
=brian
=cows are strangely attracted to me=
But Google News is a Beta? (Score:3, Insightful)
This clearly leverages off Google News, so somethings not making sense. There isn't a Beta label on Google Reviews even though it sources from their news feed. How can they use these reviews without a beta label, if the remainder of the newspaper requires it? How long before these reviews start to carry text ads? And does this mean the Beta label will be dropped off Google News as well?
In any case, this wouldn't be much use to me as I primarly use IMDB as a driver for selecting movies. I find critics working for the mainstream media are, well, just too mainstream for my tastes. I get more value from my peer's opinions than some overpaid critic.
tell me they didn't do this on purpose (Score:2, Funny)
Subject (Score:4, Funny)
Google's fine print (Score:2, Funny)
Nothing new (Score:2)
Google dupe pattern? (Score:2)
Show all movies playing nearby (Score:2)
Cool.
-ch
Yahoo as well (Score:2)
Re:Rate web pages (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rate web pages (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that probably Google's prime concern is creating a tamper-proof search system, I don't think they'd invite a system that practically screamed "Please tamper with our rating system by posting rave reviews for your brochure site for herbal Viagra."
Re:Rate web pages (Score:2)
Re:Rate web pages (Score:2, Insightful)
little things like the movie reviews, basic calculator and answers to simple questions like "population of country X" are all great, but anything more -- esspecially in the way of code for EVERY web page would both be bulky and in my opinion detracting from the original concept of simplicity.
Re:Rate web pages (Score:4, Interesting)
And in doing so, Google would create a brand new business model:
1. Create a website that advertises having pictures of Britney Spears and Natalie Portman in compromising positions and completely uninhibited, but of course contains only seven thousand banner ads.
2. Create hundreds of spambots to report to Google that your website is *the best* place to find quality research on apache, linux, lemmings, the San Francisco earthquake, herpes simplex B, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Calvinism, and navel lint.
3. Profit (see, that time step two existed)
Re:Rate web pages (Score:5, Funny)
On a tangential note, the war between spambots to read those things and websites to obfuscate them is starting to lead to a lot of websites that are asking me to find the hideously distorted numbers in completely unintelligible scribble.
Eventually, as spambots get smarter and smarter, they're going to start having to retain the services of that guy who draws "Where's Waldo": "There are six numbers hiding in the magical forest. Can you find them all?"
Re:Rate web pages (Score:2)
Re:Rate web pages (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that is [i]interesting[/i].
But consider that there's big money at stake here. If a company like Yahoo complied ten thousand images with simple questions on them ("What animal says 'quack'?"), I can pretty much guarantee that spam companies would simply respond by hiring ten teenagers to catalog a thousand questions each over the
Re:Rate web pages (Score:2)
focused searches (Score:3, Informative)
The complete list of keywords and their syntax is here [google.com].
Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap. (Score:2)
Unless you're very new here, you're probably aware that Slashdot also mentions it whenever Microsoft announces a new feature.
Unless you're very new here, you're also probably aware that Slashdot does not officially endorse Microsoft (although, you know, nearly every single poster thinks that company is just the best thing since open source sliced bread).
Answers: (Score:3, Interesting)
2. I, for one am interested in new Google projects. Getting the most use out of an already very useful service is the powergeek thing to do. Heck, we are always talking about new things to do with hardware, software, etc... I don't see Google being any different.
2a. Where are the other cool projects coming from? MSN, Yahoo? (Well ok maybe the mus
Re:Answers: (Score:2)
Yes, Yahoo. Let's see...
Creative Commons searches.
Better image searches.
Traffic overlays on maps.
The same exact movie results feature that's being reported here.
Better search API.
More, that's just off the top of my head.
Re:Yahoo FreeBSD use predates Google Linux use (Score:2)
Google is just cooler, that's all.
After thinking about it a little, it's Google's overall attitude and marketing approach that's getting the attention. Yahoo has innovated, but has not bucked the trend like Google has. Google has a plain old page, Google "does no evil", Google went with text ads, went with non-paid search results, etc....
Yahoo, is messy, does run the ads, d
Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap. (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is doing a lot of stuff that is already done by other companies, but with a better look, more sensible layout and overall better ease of use.
This is, afterall, my opinion, but it seems to be similar to those elsewhere in this forum.
I just hope that they continue to improve everything they've already established as well, and they don't overextend themselves.
Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap. (Score:2)
Too ad they can't remember my home address (Score:2)
Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap. (Score:2)
Make your query involve two addresses separated by the word "to".
Re:Bought reviews (Score:5, Funny)
I completely agree... how could anyone possibly have a different opinion to you?
Re:Bought reviews (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:showtimes (Score:2)
The ignorance / anti-Yahoo bias here is astounding. Searching for "movie 91506" and such works on Yahoo as well. And if you don't want clutter, no problem [yahoo.com].
Re:That is *such* a google rip-off. (Score:2)
Re:Kick Ass (Score:2)
Re:This is far better: (Score:2)
Google's implementation is just as fast as their regular search, plus I can get there from just doing a normal search, without having to go to a separate "movie" search page.
Re:unclear review selection criteria (Score:3, Interesting)
Average rating
3.8 / 5
Based on 40 reviews
My guess is that the ranking of those reviews are determined through PageRank. Higher ranked sites get higher placement in the list of reviews. As for Filthy's review