Bleh, every media company implementing their own shitty ecosystem is such a waste. As is usually the case, they'll probably end up doing a poor job for the first few years. A media company's core competency is their content! To give an example: despite there being tons of amazing and highly customizable video players players available on every platform, they'll push you towards using their poorly designed one-size-fits-all player. Same thing applies to content exploration, ratings, reviews, suggestions, etc.
I'd love to see an open platform for ratings, reviews, and suggestions. There's no sense in repeatedly creating isolated islands of data.
Content exploration usually sucks too. Sometimes you wanna slice data in ten different ways! Instead of implementing a mediocre searching and filtering system, just make the full catalogue's data and metadata available as a downloadable snapshot. Most content catalogues are typically pretty small, and if the data is openly available, I can just write my own one-off query. Heck, if you have all the info and metadata available, you can write some really interesting queries without having to worry about performance.
Over the last few years I've gradually lost interest in most TV and movies. I'll go to the cinema on the rare occasion something catches my eye, but it's becoming increasingly rare. The decision is also slightly politically motivated, since I find most of the crap the MPAA tries to pull absolutely reprehensible. It's very sad that piracy is still the best way acquire and consume most media.
Now I spend most of my time either reading or listening to audiobooks. There's tons of amazing content available, and it's typically cheaper than other forms of entertainment. The field is also pretty open and approachable, so anyone can try their hand at writing a book. You don't need a huge budget or anything fancy.
I'm also a big fan of the book community. My experience has been that many book authors are happy to engage in discussions, answer questions, etc. If you shoot em an email, most authors will get back to you (although though most of the bigger names will usually take longer). Providing constructive criticism (especially when they're starting off) can actually lead to improvements in future books!
I'd love to see an open platform for ratings, reviews, and suggestions. There's no sense in repeatedly creating isolated islands of data.
Content exploration usually sucks too. Sometimes you wanna slice data in ten different ways! Instead of implementing a mediocre searching and filtering system, just make the full catalogue's data and metadata available as a downloadable snapshot. Most content catalogues are typically pretty small, and if the data is openly available, I can just write my own one-off query. Heck, if you have all the info and metadata available, you can write some really interesting queries without having to worry about performance.
Over the last few years I've gradually lost interest in most TV and movies. I'll go to the cinema on the rare occasion something catches my eye, but it's becoming increasingly rare. The decision is also slightly politically motivated, since I find most of the crap the MPAA tries to pull absolutely reprehensible. It's very sad that piracy is still the best way acquire and consume most media.
Now I spend most of my time either reading or listening to audiobooks. There's tons of amazing content available, and it's typically cheaper than other forms of entertainment. The field is also pretty open and approachable, so anyone can try their hand at writing a book. You don't need a huge budget or anything fancy.
I'm also a big fan of the book community. My experience has been that many book authors are happy to engage in discussions, answer questions, etc. If you shoot em an email, most authors will get back to you (although though most of the bigger names will usually take longer). Providing constructive criticism (especially when they're starting off) can actually lead to improvements in future books!