

Ask HN: Please review my new project, Film vs Film - chaosmachine
http://filmvsfilm.com/

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alex_c
I've set up a similar voting site with moderate success (about 3.5 million
page views in a bit over a year):

<http://www.bestsporecreature.com/creatures>

A couple of points:

\- The biggest hurdle is that you need to have watched both movies to really
decide between them - with a simple image voting site, the judgement can be
instant. Movie buffs will likely enjoy it, more casual movie watchers like
myself probably won't get far.

\- related to the above: it needs to be easier/more obvious how to skip a
pair.

\- to really make it sticky, you should offer something to the hardcore set.
In a kittenwars, that's pretty obvious - people can upload pictures of their
cats, and keep coming back to see how they do. It doesn't translate very well
to movies, because people don't really add "their" movies - and there's even
less emotional attachment to a "pairing" of movies. It's mildly interesting,
but not something you want to check obsessively throughout the day. You need a
way for people to keep score and know when they're "winning".

Which movie is better IS an interesting argument - but the point is often to
show off one's knowledge of movies, which this site doesn't really let you do.

How about this: when you create a fight, you can state which movie you think
is better, or estimate a percentage win for each movie. Then, your "score" is
how many people agree with you through the blind voting on the home page. The
more matchups you add, and the closer your initial guess, the better your
"score". Add a leaders list, and you're getting places now.

------
paraschopra
Thanks for not calling it startup. No offence to anyone, but I genuinely like
it when people call their projects as projects.

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chaosmachine
This is an idea I've been working on for the last month or so. I wanted to
make a fun and addictive site with a low barrier to participation. After
iterating through a few prototypes with friends, I opened the site to the
public last week.

Some data so far: The average visitor generates over 50 page views, and stays
for longer than 5 minutes. There's significant click-through to Amazon, which
is how the site generates revenue. People seem to enjoy the site, but only a
few seem to be sharing it with their friends.

I have a Facebook Platform app in the works, which I hope will help to
increase the site's virality. In the mean time, I'd be grateful for any
feedback you could provide.

~~~
louislouis
Average of 50 page views is great, but whats the % of returning visitors? I
think u've gota find/create a reason for users to return. Neat idea
nonetheless.

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quizbiz
I found myself voting for movies I wasn't familiar with. The link to skip
isn't strong enough.

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bemmu
I agree with others that there should be some kind of scoring. It's surprising
how addicted people get to trying to improve their score, especially if there
is some leaderboard present. Just give people points for the activities you
hope they will do.

You could give points for correct guesses (maybe with time limit) and give
even more points for creating their own fights, possibly depending on how
"good" the combination of movies is (not sure how to determine that).

When using this site, it beat my expectations in that I actually found some
movies I intend to watch after using it. Stuff I had forgotten exists, like I
had watched Evil Dead 3 but skipped 1 and 2. Thanks for reminding.

------
NEPatriot
Got me hooked. I just kept clicking until I realized... hey what are you
doing? Stop clicking! So that part is done.

But then what happens?

~~~
chaosmachine
In theory, you're supposed to think "hey, I've got a great idea for a match-
up" and then head over here:

<http://filmvsfilm.com/make>

In practice, most people don't seem to discover that part of the site, or
aren't interested.

~~~
ANH
Yeah, building a population of contributors is hard, as I'm discovering (
<http://payload42.com> ). There might be some decent suggestions at
<http://meta.stackexchange.com> where folks are trying to figure out better
ways to seed Q&A sites.

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ivenkys
Addictive, very low barrier to entry - but where's the stickiness ? Why would
i go back and more importantly what is there to make me remember my fights of
which film won or lost ?

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oneplusone
This webpage has a redirect loop.

The webpage at <http://filmvsfilm.com/> has resulted in too many redirects.
Clearing your cookies for this site or allowing third-party cookies may fix
the problem. If not, it is possibly a server configuration issue and not a
problem with your computer.

~~~
chaosmachine
Thanks, this should be fixed now.

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fara
yet another kitten war? <http://kittenwar.com/>

~~~
joshfinnie
I thought puppy war (<http://www.puppywars.com/>) was another kitten war?

Disclousure: I am not sure which one of these actually came out first and I
don't care to look.

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ANH
I can dig it. The functionality is right there as soon as you arrive. Fun to
compare movies I'm familiar with, but also kinda cool to see juxtapositions of
movies I have seen with ones I haven't.

Suggestions? I dunno, maybe a big fat arrow to skip to the next pair instead
of the text "skip it". For some reason it took me a little longer than it
should have to locate that element.

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matthias
Good name! We could never come up with a descriptive title for this at
<http://www.greatmovieexperiment.com/> The name seems so obvious now. Our goal
was to create a list of the top films by showing all the pairings of films
randomly. I presume a "top fights" page on yours will be forthcoming?

------
jeroen
Have you considered moving the "Pick one!" column to the middle? It might be
more obvious there.

Why is the about-page styled differently from the rest of the site? It also
has a stray </a>.

More (minor) html errors: <http://vldtr.com/?key=filmvsfilm.com>

~~~
chaosmachine
I did try putting the column in the middle, but I didn't like the result.

The about page is borrowed from another project of mine, I didn't want too
spend much time on it, it's more of a placeholder than anything.

Fixed those validation errors, thanks.

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JoeAltmaier
More details from the movies - tag lines, famous scenes, remind me of the
movie - the box isn't enough.

~~~
gcb
that's useful. I'm brazilian, i've seen most of those movies in my childhood,
with the title translated (i.e. f*!&$d up). the DVD cover might not give much
detail to figure out the movie in some rare cases.

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alexandros
why don't you structure the whole thing like a league? films that 'win' a
match, get paired to each other and so on until you find the 'greatest film',
Granted, many will disagree, but it should make the project a bit more
substantial and may make people come back.

~~~
ovi256
Yup, provide a time-limited contest : "December 1st (or whaterver), come back
to see the winner!".

This could create quite a viral loop.

Also, try to provide a sense of tribe : make people sense they belong as fans
of a certain movies. This will greatly increase their participation.

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davidw
Nice, but to keep me interested for longer, I think it would have to have a
bit more to it.

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petesalty
Sorry, this isn't really good feedback, but I think others have covered most
of the points. I loved some of the match ups, like the one between The
Professional and The Littlest Mermaid. I couldn't decide.

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vorador
There's something I don't understand : why is everything based on opposition ?
I mean, why not create a connection website ? What connects "breathless" ("à
bout de souffle") to "la scala" ?

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haydenchambers
there were some films too close to call but I wanted to see the result.. eg
"lost in translation" vs "adaptation"

also would be good to have a filter eg "only show most controversial" or "only
show scifi"

