Watch What I Watch
Back in February, I wrote about creating simple apps for yourself using no-code tools. The last example was a simple automation to record everything I watch, with ratings.
I've expanded that concept a bit, and now you can see the results.
Why I'd want to record what I watch
- To see which subscription services are worth the money. Could I save money by renting the content instead? Maybe it'd be cheaper to rent all my content.
- I want to keep a list of the best stuff. We used to buy our favourites and put 'em on a shelf. Then look through them when we wanted to do a rewatch. A digital list seems like the modern version of that.
- It's something to do when the movie's over. It's an activity to occupy that liminal space between the ending of one thing and the beginning of the next.
You can check it out now
My list as of the beginning of 2024 is live now. You can see it at watched.angus.plus. It looks like this:
The public view is very simple – it's just a grid of stuff I watched. As the list grows, I'd like to add more ways to slice and dice it. Filters and sorting, of course. Maybe some playlists or randomizers.
I also want to add an 'equivalent rental cost' where the amount you pay for the subscription is divided amongst what you watch. I'm not sure how I'll do the math on that when it comes to serieseses.
On the backend, there's a TVDB integration and a search / add that makes it really quick to add stuff. It looks like this:
What goes in the review box isn't shown publicly yet.
Where it could go
Sign-ups will be enabled soon enough and you'll be able to create your own directory if you want.
But then...
The bigger idea would be a country-specific (e.g. Canadian-only), Goodreads, and possibly Medium combo.
- Country specificity means you can track what service the media is on and correctly give suggestions based on what services someone currently has.
- It's like Goodreads in that it's a place to track your own entertainment + a place to discover new stuff.
- And maybe like Medium in that you could get paid to contribute. Imagine if you paid $x/year for recommendations and reviews, and half of that money goes to the people making the recommendations and writing the reviews.
Other ideas:
- A spoiler-free angle. Maybe you couldn't see reviews or ratings for something until you watched it yourself. (But there could also be a vague warning system if you're not in the mood for a real stinker.)
- A site-wide book-club-like thing. "For October, we're all sub'ing to Disney+ and watching these series..." Maybe we can fix those awkward office conversations where it's like, "Have you seen [this show]?" "Nope, have you seen [other show]?" "Nope."
There are great services out there already like https://letterboxd.com and https://likewise.com and probably a dozen or more others. I haven't seen a good one just for Canada yet so if you know of one or have a good source of Canadian recommendations, lmk!
More to come.
