MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Imitations never succeed

Imitations never succeed


I've seen a few YouTube clones in my time and they always end up failing. If you want this site to succeed, you need to add some quirks that differentiates it from IMDB. Make the theme blue instead of yellow. Add a thumbs up/down system or even karma points. The trending widget is a nice touch.

Keep up the good work Jim! Maybe consider advertising on reddit, that might bring in a few more people.

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This is not much of an imitation because this is more pro fan than IMDb ever was. I am sure there will be features that will differentiate this site from IMDb and of course, one has to because IMDb could be onto a competitor website. It's not like producers and directors are going to use this site to add their next movie or show.

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Hahaha!

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Good one. You're all right.

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Hahaha very true

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LoL...love it!

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Drops Mic

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<< Imitations Never Succeed >>

But, isn't the myth of "Jesus Christ" just an imitation of legends that go further back in almost all global cultures?
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Hahaha good one! 😊

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Ooh Snap!
This makes me wish for a "like" button.

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Hahahahaha love it! And you're damn right :D

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Lol according to some.

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There was one youtube video that had Dave Ramsey, a Christian guy who helps people with their financial problems, where a person by the name of Jesus, commented to never tith a church because it just pays into their profits (assuming churches never really use donations for the common good). It turned out that the guy's youtube account name was Jesus "common with Hispanic first names" and a guy, who replies to him, goes "Ha, your name is Jesus!"

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Imitations don't succeed when the original is still there competing with them. but imitations can often succeed and thrive and surpass the original when the original is dead.

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Yeaup. I somehow get the feeling IMDB won't last very long without the boards and will either have to bring them back or simply shut down. Or they'll keep pushing and fall into obscurity.

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They do still have some value as the repository of the facts about any movie or show or actor. But once those facts are there about a movie, then it's static. You read the info once and you never need to look at it again. The info for Wizard of Oz is not going to change.
With message boards, you keep coming back over and over to see what is new. There is new content for each movie or show being created all the time. And it's FREE content, that they don't have to pay a cent to make. Users are doing all the writing.
I think they will survive but their page views are going to take a nose dive.

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It's doubtful because although the boards were traffic; producers, directors, actors, actresses, and other movie crews are ones footing the bill for the website. In fact, I would not be shocked to think SAG, the union for film and celebrities, had them taken down to save face of some of their clients. I mean when a movie was discussed, there was a lot of trash talking about celebs as well. IMDb probably did not want to be sued for it and so they decided to shut it down to be more politically correct.

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Could you enlighten me as to what karma points are? How do they work? The only time I ever used reddit was yesterday when trying to promote this place, heh.

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Karma is kind of like a thumbs up or thumbs down on each post, sometimes it's called Kudos. And then the system keeps track of how many people upvote your posts or downvote them, and each person gets a karma score based on their average. People with a high score tend to be viewed as trustworthy or they consistently provide valuable/useful content.

It can be abused (like anything else) and I have been on boards where sensitive people have a meltdown when their score goes down by a fraction of a point. grown adults crying because one person downvotes them. :p
People also sometimes gang up with their friends to make eachother more popular by upvoting every post by their friends and downvoting their "enemies". They also can register multiple accounts (sockpuppets) to use in upvote/downvote shenanigans.
It has it's uses, but it's also a can of worms. This is why we can't have nice things.

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Trolls are already a trigger to those who are sensitive. Would you then really want to add karma points into the mix too? We'd all be bathing in an ocean of emo tears in here ffs.

Thanks for elaborating btw :)

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I think it's worth a try, everything big starts from something small and untested. I'm sure it's been said infinitum, but I had the IMDb boards as my bookmark! Only later would I sometimes venture out to the main page. I'm even fine with some censoring of words to cut back on the trolls. If I say a character is f***ing stupid for entering a dark house everyone gets the idea! People always work around cuss words but I bet it's not near as fun for trolls if they can't actually type it out!

But I agree with changing the colors and logo eventually, when it establishes an identity of it's own.

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I'd like a thumbs up/down system... besides that this site is perfect and I wish it succeeds.

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It would be good to almost pin a thread on a discussion board, to move it to the top or an individual response on a thread. I would definitely want to see something like that.

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I wouldn't compare this to a traffic grabbing imitation or cheap clone knockoff. Most of the people here really valued the IMDB forums, even if they didn't post there. This project is giving some of those threads and discussions back to the online community, where IMDB has terminated access to such information. This site doesn't come across as a clone or an imitation, merely a backup or mirror of the IMDB message boards, but at this point has become one of the only places to access and discuss this kind of information. The IMDB friendly (clearly knocked off) theme just makes it a more comfortable transition for the users who have spent many hours and days in front of the IMDB message boards.

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<< The IMDB friendly (clearly knocked off) theme just makes it a more comfortable transition for the users who have spent many hours and days in front of the IMDB message boards. >>

Yes, exactly. The look can change or be tweaked eventually, if it needs to, but right now the similarity's just therapeutic : )

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Yeah it's comforting, and we all want to feel warm and comfortable with familiarity. I'd choose this simple, non-aesthetically-pleasing IMDb-board skin any day. It's all I've known in the past few years ^^

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Well said.

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