I’ve been an avid user of the Internet Movie Database for years. It’s the best site ever for settling bar bets. It could, of course, do better.
Two quick points of feedback for them – unsolicited, of course, but worth sharing:
1) To send them any feedback, you must register. How much do they want to avoid anyone writing them? Yes, I’m sure they’re bombarded with questions they can’t help with such as how to contact actors and people who disagree with a movie’s ratings, but that’s about as harsh a take on customer service as I’ve seen anywhere. How many hoops are they trying to make their visitors jump through?
2) Even more annoying, IMDB serves 30-second ads before movie trailers. This is one of my biggest pet peeve, and a favorite example for how to screw up online video. A movie trailer, if they haven’t caught on, is an ad – generally a 2-minute ad for a 120-minute film. So IMDB, in its infinite wisdom, serves ads before other ads. Do they think their users are that dumb? It’s bad enough to get a 30-second spot running before 2 minutes of any type of content, but running ads before ads is insulting, and a great way to alienate its audience. Apple.com has a much better trailer site anyway.
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Show comments Hide commentsRemember a while ago when they briefly experimented with interstitials? Even between the trivia and goofs pages? Man, that was bad.