A Better Opinion

Hypothetical question: If you wanted to know if you should go see some movie that's out in theaters right now, who would you ask for their opinion: some stranger on the street, or a friend whose taste in movies you share?

This is the idea with "A Better Opinion."

My (Nick's) friend Jordan is in the process of rolling out a new business venture: it's called "aBetterOpinion.com" (ABO) and is a website that "is able to determine which movies, books, and video games you will and will not like." This is how it works:

After signing in you tell ABO what your taste in movies/books/video games is like by rating them with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. ABO can then find other users with your same tastes and tell you how those people felt about a certain movie/book/video game that you're interested in.

This is way better than going to some ratings website and looking up how many stars that one movie got. How do you know if the people who rated have your same taste in movies? Normal ratings websites = stranger on the street. ABO = your friend with the same tastes as you have.

The website is currently in beta (meaning it has some tweaks that still need to be worked on) but it's still easy to use and understand. Now that you understand how the website works, you can see how important it is to have established a good base of users upon which to make matches with other users. That's why I'm coming to you: will you help out by creating an account and rating some movies or video games? (Books aren't up yet). Jordan writes:

"In exchange for your help, I will designate all of you as Founding Members on your profile. (and if you live in the LA area, Ill take you to dinner, buy you some drinks, give you a high five, etc.) I hope this will bring you great pride as we all contribute in making this thing happen."

I found the easiest method was going through the list of movies that a friend had already rated, and rating them for myself. Both me and Jamie are "friends" with Jordan, so when you look at his profile and see the list of his friends, click on us. I'm "That was rad" and Jamie is... wait for it... " jamie."

Here's the link for the website: aBetterOpinion.com . Have fun!