Google Adds Movie Ratings, Times, Reviews

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.

Re:another google innovation

google knows all. do not question.

Re:another google innovation

More appropriately, can Google host a page that it cannot cache?

Such a Great Way to Market

Google's true genius might be the way they add new features...and let it all get advertised by users. Instead of the Yahoo model of cluttering up the main page so much that is unusable, Google just adds a feature--and people find out when they try it, or it ends up on a site like Slashdot

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

> or it ends up on a site like Slashdot

Yeah, but how often does *that* happen?

Re:Such a Great Way to Market

It is true that viral marketing [wikipedia.org] is very effective. But I don't think they're deliberately trying to do that. It's just that their haphazard product development process makes a proper "feature launch" impossible!

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

but because the people making the decision hated pages with banner ads.

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

And there you have it. Right now, the folks making the decisions are folks that think like us.

Sorry, but that's standard Geek bigotry. Most web surfers are not "people like us". Most people seem to be pretty tolerant of obnoxious advertising, and the 900 million people who surf the web these days are more representative of society at large, not Geek culture. So it's a little suprising that obnoxious ads are less effective online they they are in other media.

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:Rate web pages

They should allow people to rate and review websites. That would make a little more sense, don't you think? Plus, it would be original.

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."

...unless, of course, the reviews were presented in such a way that they didn't affect which web sites people decided to click on - in which case the whole rating system would be little more than a waste of resources.

Re:Rate web pages

They could ask you what type of search you are doing - technical research, entertainment, etc. and sort your results accordingly.

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

I.E. at the very least, have one of those "type the word in the graphic" things.

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?"

Oh, isn't that old?

I remember on spotting this feature (which I am unable to use since google decided only to support the other side of the bath tub) some month ago.

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?

Okay, so if you live in the New York, you might actually try the following:

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.

hmmmm

This sounds familiar [slashdot.org].

Another feature of the search

Try this search [google.com], or to put it into the search box: "movie:movie". Enter your zip code for a full listing of locally showing movies.

Data collection...

I just wonder what they're doing with all of this data. Between zip code and links visited, you could assemble some pretty interesting demographics.

-Ben

Also, you can search by plot!!!

Even if you dont remember the movie name, you can try searching for plot/key phrases!!

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!

Google

If google starts issuing IDs for each user, I wouldn't be suprised if it became more important than a social security number.

Re:Google

your google id WILL be your social security number. google's going to acquire the social security administration next.

Bye Bye Fandango

Say Good Bye to Mr. Fandango....

The only thing it does now is sell tickets, but who really wants to buy movie tickets online?

Onward Google, onward! Search ... Everything.

Re:Bye Bye Fandango

but who really wants to buy movie tickets online?

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.

Google SMS

I know Google SMS [google.com]has the ability to retrieve movie showtimes for the current day in your area, though I haven't yet found a way to get future movie times (say, what opens tomorrow) through Google SMS (read: I've been too lazy to go read the help and find out).

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

Typing "Kicking and Screaming" indeed brings out the movie review link, but typing another movie (e.g. 'Closer') does not, unless you include the "movie:" operator (that is, search for "movie:Closer").

I wonder why this is so but, oh well, Google is all-wise!

This is news?

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

It was just this afternoon that some co-workers and I were discussing how awful Slashdot has gotten about posting ad "stories" and dupes, and now here's another duplicate story.

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.

But Google News is a Beta?

Earlier on /. I'd read the reason Google News still carried the Beta label was according to the TOS of most (if not all) news providers, distribution for commerical use was prohibited.

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.

Subject

In other up-to-the-minute news, Slashdot adds the ability to post comments.

Re:Bought reviews

How many of the H2G2 reviews were bought? I saw the movie this afternoon and can't see how anyone at Yahoo! or wherever could give it an 'A' (yet there were several such reviews).

I completely agree... how could anyone possibly have a different opinion to you?

Re:Nice to see BIAS for endless Google crap.

I still use Yahoo maps, but the difference is that Google's version is a lot less cluttered, less confusing and easier to use. In short, they are doing the same thing everyone else is doing, but better. The only reason I don't use Google maps is they didn't have direction finding last I checked.

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.

Answers:

1. Google is a totally great Linux / OSS / GPL success story. There is money to be made building great things for people to use on the OSS software stack.

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 music thing, but we talked about that already.) Google is innovating in a big way, bringing lots of value to the net along for the ride. They have advanced the state of the art in web interfaces, scaleable file-systems, and search several times. Can't really say that about the others now can you?

3. Savvy? Are you sure you are reading the right site? The things that Google does are *hard*. --really hard. And they do it on OSS to boot! Remember #1, that is news for nerds and it is stuff that matters.