Moviemail Blog

The New Moviemail — Announcing: Trailers

Almost two years ago I created Moviemail. It’s been an on-again-off-again project since then, with a few neat improvements and even a new product last year.

One of the main reasons for the on-again-off-again-ness of the original Moviemail was its secondariness. In other words, only when people saw a trailer they liked on another site would they open http://getmoviemail.com. And most people won’t take that extra step (including me). Too many steps, not enough delight.

I wanted to solve that. I wanted to use Moviemail more. And I wanted it to be delightful. So today I’m excited to announce the new, trailer-centric Moviemail.

Announcing: Trailers

The new Moviemail home page always shows the latest trailers released to the world. Come back tomorrow and next week, catch the latest trailers, and share them with your friends.

Share trailers

Speaking of sharing, each trailer now has its own unique permalink. As you move between the trailers the URL in your address bar will automatically update. Simply copy your address bar and share the link to your friends; they’ll be taken straight to the same trailer you were watching.

Designing for delight: 1-click reminders

One feature was outright removed in the new Moviemail: choosing whether you want reminders 3 days before, 1 day before, and/or on opening day. I looked at the data, and my own usage, and almost all reminders were for opening day only.

The trade-off of having a feature very few people might use vs. not having the feature and making the process much simpler (essentially: 1-click) for everyone else was a clear one. Now you can simply enter your email and click Email Me.

(NB: Parts of Moviemail are still awaiting their respective design refreshes, rolling out soon.)

Keyboard shortcuts

Along with the new trailer-centric home page are a few keyboard shortcuts to make browsing even easier:

• →: Loads next trailer
• ←: Loads previous trailer

There may even be an easter egg or two…

I hope you enjoy the new Moviemail as much as I do. As always, comment below with any thoughts or feedback. Or email me. I’d love to hear any other features or keyboard shortcuts you’d find useful.

  /  

Popular Searches or: How I Learned to Stop Searching and Click a Poster!

Two weeks ago I announced the new Upcoming Releases feature. Upcoming Releases has received a very warm welcome. And I’m already working on some improvements based on your actionable feedback.

Today I’d like to show you it’s companion: Popular Searches.

Popular Searches shows, in poster form, the four most popular searches across all of Moviemail right now. Simply click a poster, enter your email address, and hit Submit.

As always, email me any thoughts or feedback.

Enjoy!

  /  

Introducing the Moviemail Button

Last night I posted a very excited tweet. Now you can see why. I’d like to introduce you to the Moviemail button:

No longer do you need to send your visitors to http://getmoviemail.com. Bring Moviemail to your visitors.

The button automatically determines the movie being discussed on the page on which it is implemented. And it’s available today — all you need to do is place the following code wherever you want the button to live:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://getmoviemail.com/moviemail.js" id="moviemail"></script>

You can also set the movie title manually (great for static pages and one-off posts):

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://getmoviemail.com/moviemail.js" id="moviemail" data-title="dark knight rises"></script>

Check out the test page to see it in action.

Caveats:

• Alpha, beta, WIP, whatever you want to call it, this is clearly a very early draft. I believe in shipping so I wanted to get this out in the wild as early as possible. There will be bugs. Please email me about those.
• In order for the button to determine the movie being discussed on your page, the movie title must be 1) in the <title> of the page, and 2) enclosed in single quotes. E.g., <title>Sweet new 'Men in Black 3' trailer</title>

I’d like to say there’s some business reason behind creating this button like “it will help keep traffic on your site.” But to be frank I created this for the same reason I created Moviemail in the first place: so I don’t have to remember when interesting movies come out or mess with my calendar. I built it because I wanted it.

I hope you enjoy using this new button as much as I enjoyed creating it! Email me any thoughts or feedback.

  /  

Upcoming Releases

Trying to remember when movies are coming out is such a drag. That’s why I created Moviemail.

But say you and your snookums have already seen all the latest movies. Still, you want to see something this week. And holy crap it’s Sunday and you haven’t scheduled your date night yet for this week and that fettuccine alfredo you made last night was undercooked so now you really need an ace in the hole and oh my god who wants to decipher theater listings.

Fret no more.

Introducing: Upcoming Releases. See what’s coming out in the next 7 days, get an email the morning of. Your snookums will be so impressed.

  /  

Getmoviemail.com

Moved from moviemail.info to getmoviemail.com earlier this week. Pop the champagne.

  /