What did you watch over the Holidays/New Year?
I spent the Holidays and New Year taking some time off from work, and almost completely off my phone/social media, and used the time to watch a lot of movies and read even more books. Just before I left the online world behind (save streaming), I wrote my predictions for 2020, but I left off one because I doubted it would come true. That prediction was, without editing:
We may finally get some help in finding what we want to watch – We’ve reached information/content overload when it comes time to find something to watch on SVOD, AVOD or our millions of other options, including in theaters. Not only can I no longer remember what films I need to see, I can’t even remember which services host my favorite shows any longer. Way back in 2012, I started a company called Flicklist, with Ted Hope, that hoped to solve this problem (we failed, long story). We weren’t the first – Letterboxd and GoWatchIt launched in 2011 – and many similar services have launched over the years (iGems.TV and ReelGood, among the better ones). None have really been successful, or even solved all of the problems around discovery and remembrance of films – but just this month (ed: Dec, 2019), JustWatch acquired GoWatchIt, and reports are that the combined company will keep improving its services. I can’t predict whether they will finally build the universal film/show search engine we need, but I do hope that someone will finally build what we need in 2020.