Why another media tracking app
Because I needed it, and I can build it. It’s as simple as that. There are lots of good ones out there, but they don’t work like I have it in my head. It’s like this:
My wife and I have a shared Apple Notes app where we jot down movies and shows we want to see. We started doing this a few years ago. We did it for the same reason people use these apps - there’s so much crap out there you can’t keep it straight. Unlike when we were growing up and there were only 3 TV stations and a few shows everyone watched, we are drowning in content. Sit down at any dinner party and listen to people talk about the shows they want. Most of the time people are watching shows no one else has heard of. There’s too much.
So you hear about something you want to try, but when you end up getting time to watch you forget about it. So the shared note helps. But there’s more to it than that. The anticipation of a showing coming up is half of the fun. Waiting for it, reading news articles about it, early reviews, fan speculation. Having a list of things to look forward to, especially when you can share it with someone, is its own fun.
Apple notes are fine, but they get messy. You can’t re-order things. My wife uses the strikethrough font to indicate we’ve watched something, but I still can’t figure out how to do that.
So I set out to build something with a few simple use cases:
- A list of things to watch, read or play, easily shared with a partner or friend.
- Categories, so I can find things based on what I’m in the mood for at the time.
- A simple “state tracking system” so I can track what I’m actively watching, what’s out now and ready to start and what’s coming up next. But I also want to remember what I liked - did something really stick? Did I give up something half way? It’s got to be simple, though, because I don’t need another app to baby sit and tell it what page I’m on, or what episode I just finished.
- Really simple ways to add things: manually entered, but search-assisted. Quick sharing from the web, youtube, etc.
- Auto-detecting the “store” or whever to get the thing would be nice, too, since we spend too much time searching in multiple places for something.
That’s a good start place. But I started to think, if I had this data, I could do more!
- I could have my own collection, because my wife doesn’t want to watch that horror movie with me I’ve been wanting to see.
- I could share a collection with my daughter, or with my friends.
- Once I’ve built up a history of things I’ve watched, I could build a recommendation engine to keep an eye out for sequels, new seasons or similar shows I’d be interested in.
- I could even build a news feed specific to my media interests.
That’s really enough. If I could get that done and make the app simple and fun to use, I’d be satisfied with it. And it had to be simple, my wife really likes those Apple notes.