Stuck At The Video Store Wondering What’s Good? Use Your Phone!
I still rent movies at the store rather than online, but when I get there I end up staring at a large shelf of movies with no idea which ones are any good! I do have a fancy smart phone with internet access, so occasionally I try to lookup the movie on Rotten Tomatoes to check its rating but they don’t have a mobile version so it requires loading 3 pages and waiting 10 minutes just to lookup one title! Eventually I just end up picking one with a decent looking cover and title which often results in wasting $5 on a crap movie because I didn’t know any better. Never again!
I wrote a little script at www.gibybo.com/m that works on my phone providing a really quick way to check ratings. It just sends the search to this site which navigates Rotten Tomatoes to get the rating for you then sends it back without all the extra loading time. It still requires a phone with internet access (text message support would be a cool addition), but it turns a formerly impractical 10 minute search into a convenient 5 second check which means you no longer have to rent shitty movies!
Ok ok it doesn’t have much to do with finance unless you count the saved rental costs, but it’s still pretty cool!
Update: Fixed again!
I hate Rotten Tomatoes because they say the best movies actually suck.
Liars. Anyway, it’s still a pretty cool feature… =]
Your taste in movies obviously just hasn’t matured enough yet :)
you should check out redbox. (redbox.com) I don’t know where you live, but they are soon to be everywhere. One dollar per night, new releases. I guess you’d still have to check out the Rotten Tomatoes site though.
[Quote]Your taste in movies obviously just hasn’t matured enough yet :)[/Quote]
mature taste? You prefer fantastic four over braveheart.
[...] while at the video rental store or contemplating what movie to see in theaters while on the road.http://www.gibybo.com/2008/02/17/stuck-at-the-video-store-wondering-whats-good-use-your-phone/one day i will write a book: Where are the rotten tomatos when you …Where are the rotten tomatos [...]
[...] while at the video rental store or contemplating what movie to see in theaters while on the road.http://www.gibybo.com/2008/02/17/stuck-at-the-video-store-wondering-whats-good-use-your-phone/Circulating Libraries and Video Rental StoresThe authors describe a number of interesting parallels [...]