
Show HN: Never watch movies alone - Danilka
http://www.gotcompany.net
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jstanley
I actually prefer watching films alone. I find it much easier to concentrate
on the film, and it also means it's a lot easier to stop watching and do
something else if the film is boring.

~~~
Swizec
Moreso, most movies offer a much higher video quality on my laptop screen than
on any theatre screen I've ever seen. The availability of a comfy bed to watch
from is also a big plus.

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eksith
And other pluses: No sticky carpets, arm-rest hogging neighbors, popcorn
munching chickens or any of that bloody annoying running commentary.

If there was one crime punishable by flogging in modern society, it has to be
the commentary. If I need any of that, I'll get it on the Blue-ray/DVD
straight from the director, thank-you-very-much.

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LocalPCGuy
I don't often go to the movies alone, but I have and I enjoy the experience.
It seems like kind of a sad commentary on our society that it is so taboo to
go to the movies alone. The service basically assumes "no one WANTS to go to
the movies alone".

Now, obviously those that do want to go to the movies alone are probably not a
target market for this service and it could be valuable for those that do want
someone to go with.

It does seem like another form of encouraging extroversion in our society
though.

~~~
ctdonath
People like being alone together.

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highace
From the little explanation offered, this sounds like a great idea. I'm often
going to the cinema by myself because none of my close friends are into the
same movies as me. Plus there could be room to expand into different niches
with it, like dating.

I think having the Facebook sign in is fair in this case.

On the downside, the appearance of the site looks pretty poor, a classic case
of bootstrapitis.

~~~
w1ntermute
> Plus there could be room to expand into different niches with it, like
> dating.

Hmm, has anyone done this with events in general? You say what you want to do
and when, and it matches you up with someone.

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potatolicious
This is the concept behind howaboutwe.com - disclaimer, I work there.

Specify something you want to do, the more creative the better, can be general
or very specific. If it piques someone's interests they'll respond.

~~~
skarmklart
When are you guys rolling out in Sweden? Would be a fun way to go on dates.

The online dating space here is pretty terrible in general, we could really
use some innovation...

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aegiso
Not signing in with Facebook. Some marketing copy would be nice.

~~~
dreen
Some sort of about page explaining how this works would be nice.

~~~
Danilka
Thanks for pointing it. It is a 24h hack, so we'll keep it going!

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parennoob
It might be a cool idea to somehow build a tool that does this for
Netflix/Hulu.

I generally go to movies in the theater with people I know, but it'd be
interesting to have 'shows' of a movie on Netflix, and chat about it with
strangers watching it at the same time.

~~~
Danilka
You can choose to only go with friends on the site too.

------
Danilka
Guys, this is our TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon project that was built in 24h.
Sorry for all the faults and under-explanation on the site.

~~~
david_shaw
Ah, that explains a lot!

Great work under the time constraints; it might be a good idea to throw some
text on there indicating it was a hackathon project (for HNers who may not go
to the comments first).

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Danilka
Here is how it works:

1\. Login with Facebook.

2\. Choose the movies you want to watch.

3\. Choose whom do you want to watch it with (friends/friends+strangers) and
where (San Francisco).

4\. We'll shoot an intro email to you when there is a match.

Important thing is that it posts movies you want to watch on your wall, so
friends do know this site exists. So, please do not block it, the posts are
nice and clean. You are essentially asking friends who wants to watch movies
with you.

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samsnelling
My best attempt at explaining how it works:

1) you put in you Facebook info (which asks for friends, friends locations and
the ability to post [I denied that])

2) Your friends either see the automatic post then also log in and see what
they mutually want to see? There's also a watch with anyone feature... I
assume that's the public.

3) you then mark a movie watched so no one else contacts you about seeing it.

Here is my problem: my friends will probably never use this. Also, the
responsive layout hurts to use on mobile. Suggestion: it needs to be able to
find out what movies my friends are talking about either on Facebook or
twitter. I like the concept, and this is a good starting point, but it needs
to suck me in instead of having me wait for friends.

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ceeK
Back a long time ago my friend and I used to start a movie at exactly the same
time on our respective computers. We'd have headsets to be able to chat about
it as we watched. Is this was Gotcompany is? Or?

~~~
endianswap
No. The movies listed are all currently only released in theatres.

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slosh
I think this is a great idea! What i don't get about the current version is
how do i know who also wants to watch the movie? I think you'll need to add
search features because as a user Im down to see a movie with almost any
startup person, college student, regular mate but I don't want to be set up on
a blind man-date with homeboy in the tenderloin. It would be cool to see some
graph search used. For example I want to see a movie with people who like
saving private ryan and the batman movie who also has a background in computer
science.

~~~
Danilka
It will email you, when the match is found.

Yep, we are also thinking of adding some filters to the matching.

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nawitus
Make an About page to explain what the site does.

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diggan
So what does this do? Signed up to try it up. Said yes to the permissions
regarding position and what so ever and said no for the application to post on
my friends wall. After that, I clicked "I want to watch this" on a movie and
the button turned "I watched it!", nothing else happened on the website nor
Facebook.

I don't understand what the website is supposed to do?

~~~
Danilka
It'll emai you when the match is found.

See <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5622259> for more info.

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ngoel36
This is really great! It would be very cool to use this for other things as
well (restaurants, sports, etc.)

Small bug - When I Sign In With Facebook and then Cancel, I get a Heroku
error.

It would also be nice to see which friends have already liked a movie or some
sort of RottenTomatoes integration.

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Perceptes
I get a generic Rails error page. :\

~~~
Danilka
Yep, dealing with it. Hit the Rotten Tomatoes API limit and they don't have a
way of increasing it :-(

~~~
Danilka
Fixed it!

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raymondduke
I think it would be cool to watch them via a hangout like ui. That is, watch a
movie while talking to people via webcam. It's not a the greatest idea, but it
is more preferable to using FB to be paired with strangers to sit in silence
and watch a movie with.

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csense
This idea is brilliant. It's been years since I ditched Facebook, but this
might actually convince me to come back.

~~~
RobertHoudin
I agree that the idea is brilliant, but there is no way I am reactivating my
Facebook account to use this. I am sure there are others in the same boat as
me.

Could there not be an option to receive matches/invitations via email?

~~~
Danilka
It does use email for the introduction purposes. We do need Facebook to know
who your friends are, though.

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alpb
I am getting Heroku error page if I click the button under movies after
signing in.

