Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings • Hacker News Board

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#201

Post by pasbesoin » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 4:53 PM UTC

bostik wrote: post #63

Oh wow, that's rich. Quoting from the article: Sites like Rotten Tomatoes that aggregate movie reviews into one overall rating are being blamed for poor opening weekends. The best part is that the quote above even provides a link to the reference they are using for the made statement.[0] In effect, the studios are complaining that news of the films' crappiness are spreading too fast . Let that sink in. The studios co…

So, the next trade deal after TPP will outlaw reviews, or "examining the internal functioning of entertainment products."

Sounds like a poor joke. With increasing efforts to e.g. DMCA excerpts, citations, and other forms of "fair use" -- not to mention the TPP et al. already apparently attempting to constrain and wipe out "fair use", I'm not sure it really is.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#202

Post by hagbardgroup » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

eevilspock wrote: post #199

hagbardgroup wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we can. Private roads have no ads. Expensive neighborhoods have no ads. You won't see many ads on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Expensive HOAs ban lawn signs. You can pay extra for the ad-free Kindle from Amazon. If you buy books, the books are ad-free. Expensive newsletters are ad-free. Pay per view movies are ad-free (except when they have products inserted surreptitiously into the content on behalf of advertisers…

So, a two class system. The poor get by (taken advantage of is more like it) by submitting to "brain-scrambling". The rich get rich thorough said brain-scrambling. Excellent! Not to mention it is utter bullshit that ads make things cheaper or free: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773 . So much for your "pattern". EDIT (since I can't reply to hagbardgroup at this thread depth): You didn't really read the link…

It does make things cheaper -- whether in time or money.

I don't get it how your statement about Facebook's customers not being the users isn't consistent with the idea that it's 'free.'

Everything costs resources. Facebook isn't 'free.' You use Facebook in return for allowing Facebook to spy on you on behalf of their customers, and give those customers chances to influence you through various forms of media.

There are plenty of communications alternatives which are more private and expensive. Phone companies offer various tiers of paid service. There are tons of messaging apps that permit you to mass message people. You can send electronic mail to anyone in the world. Whoa! So many options!

Facebook is pure frippery, and most people's lives can be improved by quitting the service in the same way that unsubscribing from Publisher's Clearinghouse improves people's lives.

However, plenty of people are willing to give up their attention in return for low price entertainment. People can go to the movie theater for $10, or they can spend two hours clicking Buzzfeed for $0 and two hours. Advertisers pay Buzzfeed's bills so they can remind those readers to buy more tacos from Taco Bell. It costs the advertiser maybe $0.03 per page view for that user owing to Buzzfeed's excellent rates -- so a cool $0.60 for a 20-listicle binge.

The readers spent two hours, but plenty of people are willing to make that trade. Others aren't.

Free web services need advertisers way, way, way, way more than advertisers need those free services. If those web services can no longer provide value to advertisers, then those web services will need to start charging users rather than advertisers to fund the service. Else, you can lobby the government to fund GovernmentBook -- hopefully with co-located servers in that Utah data farm. Then, taxpayers will pay for a continually degrading monopoly service, and you'll get government ads instead of commercial ones. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#203

Post by saint_fiasco » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 6:01 PM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #194

eevilspock wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A grapevine starts with one. Recommendation systems, as well as the plain old web, are just scalable grapevines. If a new product is good, people will quickly hear about how good it is from actual users. As opposed to from you the biased (and often motivated to mislead) seller. So how do you bootstrap your good product into the grapevine? A variety of ways, depending on what it is. Sending samples to reviewers. Annou…

Sending samples to reviewers. Announcements on relevant websites (such as HN). Making it available in catalogs and product search engines (Amazon, an app store, Etsy, Orbitz, etc) where people will encounter it in search results. Aren't those all forms of advertising?

People read reviewers and get catalogues and search for things on purpose.

I don't think people have a problem with getting information about products when they deliberately look for that.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#204

Post by bostik » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 6:04 PM UTC

dspillett wrote: post #102

bostik wrote: post #63

Oh wow, that's rich. Quoting from the article: Sites like Rotten Tomatoes that aggregate movie reviews into one overall rating are being blamed for poor opening weekends. The best part is that the quote above even provides a link to the reference they are using for the made statement.[0] In effect, the studios are complaining that news of the films' crappiness are spreading too fast . Let that sink in. The studios co…

This isn't the first time: Gigalo's poor performance at the box office was blamed on people texting their contacts as they left the theatre to say "go see something else instead". I can't remember if that was any form of public statement or an internal memo that leaked out, but either way it is funny.

This is not even a particularly new development.

I remember reading a few articles back in 2010 or 2011 where movie studios were complaining that for some films, only the first viewing of the opening night would be sold out.

They did some research and discovered that people were pushing social media and twitter updates as they were walking out, recommending everyone to just avoid the damn thing. This was at a time when cinemas would have tickets reserved and you could pick them up from the ticket booth.

So what happened, was that people would simply not show up at all and the theatres couldn't even know that there were plenty of unsold tickets until ~1h before the start.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#205

Post by eevilspock » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 6:05 PM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #194

eevilspock wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A grapevine starts with one. Recommendation systems, as well as the plain old web, are just scalable grapevines. If a new product is good, people will quickly hear about how good it is from actual users. As opposed to from you the biased (and often motivated to mislead) seller. So how do you bootstrap your good product into the grapevine? A variety of ways, depending on what it is. Sending samples to reviewers. Annou…

Sending samples to reviewers. Announcements on relevant websites (such as HN). Making it available in catalogs and product search engines (Amazon, an app store, Etsy, Orbitz, etc) where people will encounter it in search results. Aren't those all forms of advertising?

Only in the barest and most technical of senses. They are not being shoved in anyone's face; They are being placed where people want to find them. They are not subsidizing anything, and thereby mucking with normal healthy free-market dynamics (where the customer is the customer, not the product). It's one thing to put a sign outside your new bakery, or to request the newspaper's food critic to review your product, and its another thing entirely to "donate" your cupcakes to a charity bake sale on condition that there be a sign about your shop or flyers handed out with the cupcakes.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#206

Post by chrismcb » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

kpmah wrote: post #95

abruzzi wrote: post #32

I never trust any online reviews, especially aggregate reviews, because I have never found any to hew remotely closely to my taste (the best example is on RT, the worst movie I've seen in the last two decades is rated 95% fresh). The only approach I've found that works is to pick a professional reviewer that is marginally close to my taste, read a lot of their reviews, so I know where I tend to agree and where I disa…

I love RT, but I think people misinterpret the percentage. It doesn't mean that the film was 95% 'good', it means there was a 95% chance you'd like the film and a 5% chance you'd dislike it based on a sampling of professional reviews. Something to bear in mind is that a slight above mediocre film can have a 100% rating if it has wide appeal.

I think you are the one that is misinterpreting the percentage. 95% means that 95% of the reviews were "positive." Of course it says nothing on whether you will like it or not, because it has no idea what you would like.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#207

Post by chrismcb » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 6:50 PM UTC

Udik wrote: post #118

bostik wrote: post #63

Oh wow, that's rich. Quoting from the article: Sites like Rotten Tomatoes that aggregate movie reviews into one overall rating are being blamed for poor opening weekends. The best part is that the quote above even provides a link to the reference they are using for the made statement.[0] In effect, the studios are complaining that news of the films' crappiness are spreading too fast . Let that sink in. The studios co…

The problem with Rotten Tomatoes is that - I suspect- the studios are perfectly able to influence the professional reviewers. Or, more probably, professional reviewers adjust their expectations and judgments on the type of movie they're reviewing. The end result is that every recent shiny pile-of-crap produced by Hollywood gets enthusiastic reviews and therefore excellent scores on RT. Gravity: RT score 97% 2001 A Sp…

One thing to keep in mind is Rotten Tomatoes isn't a ranking. A movie that gets a 100% rating COULD be just a "good" movie, but not a perfect movie. 100% just means that every review consider it in a "positive" light. Not that every review thought it was the best movie ever made. The numbers can't really be compared to each other. Another thing to keep in mind is the number of reviewers. 2001 had 70, while Gravity had 306. 2001 had 3 "negative" reviews while Gravity had 10.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#208

Post by cJ0th » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 8:33 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #119

My experience has shown that the only movies worth looking at are rated > 7/10 anything below is mostly crap. But this only works for movies that are mainstream BUT not too real blockbusters. Because stuff like the fast and the furious or transformers gets good ratings anyways. But I use such ratings only to get something light on a boring evening. Mostly I watch ArtHaus stuff and don't look at those ratings.

That's exactly my experience. What's more, I find that people tend to rate a comedies more positively than movies from other genres.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#209

Post by dec0dedab0de » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 8:58 PM UTC

eevilspock wrote: post #205

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sending samples to reviewers. Announcements on relevant websites (such as HN). Making it available in catalogs and product search engines (Amazon, an app store, Etsy, Orbitz, etc) where people will encounter it in search results. Aren't those all forms of advertising?

Only in the barest and most technical of senses. They are not being shoved in anyone's face; They are being placed where people want to find them. They are not subsidizing anything, and thereby mucking with normal healthy free-market dynamics (where the customer is the customer, not the product). It's one thing to put a sign outside your new bakery, or to request the newspaper's food critic to review your product, an…

I agree with your point about ad's being "shoved in someone's face" and that it is a problem when services are beholden to specific advertisers. But I do think ad's can be done tastefully and in a way that benefits all involved.

Imagine if HN had a link at the top for advertisements, and they had a policy that anyone with > x amount of karma could pay $y to have a listing for z days. It would be reminiscent of the ad's in the back of old computer magazines, with people selling home made software, tools, and services.

Another example, would be if a music venue paid local record shops to have a prominent display of upcoming shows in their store, and on their website. How could that be anything but useful?

Honestly, I'm not selling anything, and I avoid ad's as much as possible. I even signed up for the ad free Hulu just to put my money where my mouth was, after ranting to friends about how I would never pay for something that came with commercials. I just think that a wholesale attack against the idea of advertising is shortsighted.

Re: Be Suspicious of Online Movie Ratings

#210

Post by kpmah » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 9:12 PM UTC

chrismcb wrote: post #206

kpmah wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love RT, but I think people misinterpret the percentage. It doesn't mean that the film was 95% 'good', it means there was a 95% chance you'd like the film and a 5% chance you'd dislike it based on a sampling of professional reviews. Something to bear in mind is that a slight above mediocre film can have a 100% rating if it has wide appeal.

I think you are the one that is misinterpreting the percentage. 95% means that 95% of the reviews were "positive." Of course it says nothing on whether you will like it or not, because it has no idea what you would like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics)