I Heart Movies: A Service I Thought I’d Hate

Every so often when I'm reading about a new-to-me Web 2.0 site or service, I follow the link and try the site out just because I need a giggle. With the gimmicky heart symbol in their logo, I Heart Movies seemed like a kitschy one-off site like Famousr. Of course, in the interest of you, the Profy reader, I signed up for an account and took it for a spin. And was hooked.

I Heart Movies is a social network built around movies, which is self-explanatory based on their name. Once you create an account, you can look up movies, and add them to your collection, flagging them as movies you own, have watched, rank as a "MustSee" or want on a wishlist. You can also tag the movies in your collection, create a tracking system for lending out your movies, and join in community forums for your favorite movies.

I'll be honest; I Heart Movies is far from perfect. The social aspect feels like a "must have if it's 2.0" add-on, and while it may be neat to talk to some other folks about a specific movie, it's not going to be a long-term social network builder having a community segregated into such tiny niches. A better plan might be to combine the forums by genre, with movie threads, allowing more of a community build. And if you are someone like me who likes a lot of art-house and foreign films, you may be out of luck on adding a lot of your movies; two I tried to add to my wishlist were favorites I haven't seen in years: Indochine and Tous le matins du monde, and I had to send in the "this isn't here" feedback form for both.

However, I haven't been able to really track a decent wishlist since I quit my Netflix membership. IMDB is too huge and complicated to do anything worthwhile, and I Heart Movies can definitely fill a niche market. With just a tab open in my browser, I can view trailers online or on television, and add it quickly to my wishlist. I can also track where I loan out my videos. A mash-up with an Amazon aStore or a purchase by someone like Blockbuster or another video company would almost certainly provide the site with a steady revenue stream. Sometimes, it pays to stick to what you know and keep it small and simple. I'm hooked.