EDIT: Thank you so much for the support and... the awards! I didn't expect such a positive reaction and I hope that my replies have helped some of you in any way. Thanks a lot!
The link: [https://www.tastoid.com/](https://www.tastoid.com/)
Presentation page: [https://www.tastoid.com/about/](https://www.tastoid.com/about/)
It has been more than three years than I have been working on this dream project. I had to learn everything from scratch (Python, Elasticsearch, Django...) with [this idea](https://www.reddit.com/r/Startup_Ideas/comments/91exw6/a_site_that_gives_personalized_suggestions_for/) in mind of creating a web app which would provide **personalised movie and TV recommendations**. I am really passionate about cinema, so this was my hobby project.
Many time I hit my head against the wall, many time I had to get my hand dirty. It was a real enriching experience. I had to make concessions such as resorting to Native JS rather than a front-end framework.
I feel relieved, but, at the same time, exhausted of working alone on this project. Even more so as I have new challenges (marketing the idea, creating a community...). The reason I am writing this post is to encourage people to believe in their dream. I would like to thank this community for being positive and helpful during my journey.
Please let me know if you have any question or suggestion/comment regarding my web app (UX, accuracy of the recommendations...). In return, I am open to any question as I want to share with you the lessons I have learned.
Features:
* A place to intuitively organize and **track the titles** you have completed.
* **Detailed stats** in your profile (e.g. [my profile](https://www.tastoid.com/user/1/vonmaster/)).
* **Personalized recommendations** (everytime you rate 5 movies above 4 stars or add them to your favorites).
* **Explore titles** using a descriptive search engine (i.e. ["nostalgic coming-of-age movie teenagers 60s"](https://www.tastoid.com/search/movies/?search_multi_match=nostalgic%20coming-of-age%20movie%20teenagers%2060s)) and narrowing results using tags such as the mood or the plot type (i.e. ["#atmospheric" ](https://www.tastoid.com/search/?Mood=Atmospheric) ).
* **Filter results** by streaming platform (Netflix...).
* And many more (reviews, lists, calendar...).
https://preview.redd.it/2twmrzqddkr51.png?width=2275&format=png&auto=webp&s=f1a884413d1f2e55e8e2b872b3056c61723d279d
https://preview.redd.it/2adomfcbgkr51.png?width=2277&format=png&auto=webp&s=eecb6da67a81ba5e718bb4748ac639631c8fc070
https://preview.redd.it/bsgkvf4agkr51.png?width=2274&format=png&auto=webp&s=6da4c150da31a3bdf40d94e8d73de9733c12cefe
Hey, it looks great! This reminds me of GoodReads but for movies instead of books. How does it make recommendations? Based off the tags? or is there some machine learning algorithm? It looks like you used a ton of API’s to pull in all that data. I signed up and I’m user number 3.
Sweet! How are you creating recommendations? Eg. what goes into your “handcrafted algorithm”?
I like this a lot
Great to see a passion project finding the day of light.All power to you
What r u using for ads ?
Ads
Looks good
Wow, very nicely done! Looks great.
Where and how did you host your website/files
Hey if you wanna know I noticed this bug on the presentation page: When it transitions from \*TV Show and \*taste, the next container is too small for TV Show, so the text wraps and overlaps. I only noticed it for that combination. Here is an image:
[https://imgur.com/a/M1j6Ea3](https://imgur.com/a/M1j6Ea3)
Congrats on completing your dream project, it looks great & extensive.
Nice app. The filters can be applied twice. May be worth fixing that.
The options for what I’m in a mood for are all pretty depressing. What about “funny” and “romantic” for example?
How often did you work on it throughout the three years??
Great work! The site looks very clean and polished. If I had stumbled upon it without reading this post then I would have assumed that it was built by a professional team (similar to IMDB, Metacritic, etc.).
Believe it or not, I can actually remember originally reading your post on r/startup_ideas years ago when I was also searching around and doing research on building a very similar recommendation web app. Your story is extremely familiar (passion project, learning from scratch, hitting walls, similar timeline). Congratulations on getting it done, I know from experience that it is not easy.
Some other things I like:
* I think that you chose a great name. It is short, memorable, and represents the purpose of the site. Also good work on snagging that .com domain name which I think adds authenticity (as superficial as that might be).
* I like your emphasis on mood tags to find titles. That is definitely something that isn’t used on other movie/TV show sites (IMDB, Netflix, etc.) so it stands out.
* The search works really well!
* I really like your “hero” image where the text flips between movie, TV show, etc. Very slick!
Some quick minor design things that I noticed when browsing around:
* On the registration page, the autofocus is on the username field (even though the email field is the first field)
* Your cookie banner has a lower z-index than some of the page elements (ex. the navigation buttons on the right of the About page)
* For the movie/TV show cards on the front page, I would make the photos linked so that you can click on them (this would be especially great on mobile). Also you might want to make the buttons (watched, rate, etc.) a little bigger to make them easier to click
* I would add an ’empty state’ for sections where there is no content, like the “My Feed” tabs at the bottom. Sometimes they are just empty, so it’s not clear whether there was an error with loading the items or just no items
* There are some random text overflow issues when I open it on my phone (iphone 6). There is some text going off screen or overflowing to the next line in a way that looks a little awkward
Some questions for you:
* In your original post you mentioned that you also wanted to recommend books and music. Do you still have plans for this, or are you sticking to films/TV shows?
* Where are you hosting? Longterm, do you feel comfortable with your hosting costs vs the amount you’re making from ads?
* Is the Justwatch embed that you’re using free? I was also looking into it, but it seemed like it had a fee attached.
Anyways, great work again!
Congrats man! It looks really good.
great job! I made a list 🙂 I’d like a modal when I click ‘save’ on a list that says ‘Saved!’ and I can click ok or something.
Wonderful job, bookmarked for future use
Looks great, congrats!
Question: how do you crawl for ratings across different movie sites – are you using an API?
This is very professional, inspires me to make something cool like this!
Amazing and cool looking application…