8 ms·

Can’t Wait (YC S11) is a mobile social network for movie trailers

121 points by canistr 15y ago

ericflo 15y ago
Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! We're happy to answer any questions you have in this thread--ask away. We're very excited to show what we've been working on, and we can't wait (sorry) to show you all where we're headed in the future.
- sriramk 15y ago
  How do you guys get access to the trailers? Does that involve some licensing or are they freely available? Very nifty app btw - congratulations.
  - ericflo 15y ago
    All of our trailers are actually being streamed from YouTube. We're using the YouTube API on the website to build a nice HTML5 player, and then in the app, HTML5 plays using the native player.
    - sriramk 15y ago
      Nice! Why didn't I think of that? :)
    - sriramk 15y ago
      Nice! Why didn't I think of that? :)
    - justincormack 15y ago
      I always assumed you could not do that as the terms of service say You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Service or the Content without YouTube's prior written authorization, unless YouTube makes available the means for such distribution through functionality offered by the Service (such as the Embeddable Player). Am I mistaken?
      - ericflo 15y ago
        We're just using the embeddable player (the iframe version of it) which automatically uses Flash on the web and HTML 5 <video> on iOS http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/iframe_api_reference.html http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/iframe_api_reference.htm...
- simonista 15y ago
  Weren't you working on Convore a few months ago? Is this from the same team?
  - ericflo 15y ago
    It's from 2/3 of that team. Eric and I left to start this in late May-early June and Leah is working at Convore.
olivercameron 15y ago
Can't Wait! is awesome. Movie trailers are actually perfectly sized bits of content to be consumed when you're bored, it also happens to one of the few bits of content I love to see my friends recommend. The app is really well put together too, I've gotten used to apps scrolling tons of images to be rather bad performing, but Can't Wait! scrolls like a champ.
- timthorn 15y ago
  Am I alone in trying to avoid trailers? I find they tend to give away too much of the story, and always contain the best special effects from the film. I want to be surprised by the movies I see, and trailers act against that.
  - megablast 15y ago
    I am sure you are not alone, but there are a significant number of people who enjoy trailers, possible the majority. Trailers can be more entertaining than most films they portray. So what do you go when you see a film, come in 20 mins late?
d0m 15y ago
Seriously, it's the kind of app that make you say "Crap, this is so simple.. but so useful; I wish I had thought of that". There are several other apps that aim to make sharing movies/songs/<name-it> easier.. but starting with movie trailers is a great start. Good luck, have fun!
nibo 15y ago
Really cool as I am addicted to trailers. I would also add a piece to their business model. They could let you browse old movies trailers as well (I would watch them!) and let you rent the movie from Netflix, taking a percentage. What do you think?
- zeeg 15y ago
  Netflix doesnt charge per rental, the most that they could do is an affiliate signup with the company.
MatthewB 15y ago
Is it just me or are a lot of the recent YC companies extremely niche, almost where they could just be a feature of another website? Maybe I'm just in a negative mood today.
- arctangent 15y ago
  I don't know whether you are right or not about that. However, I do think it's a good idea to be "extremely niche", especially when the size of your market - in this case, people who like watching movies - is very large. I'm sure that a good movie trailer recommendation system would work well on other sites, but those sites may have already moved past the startup/development phase into business-as-usual, where they are trying to squeeze money out of what they currently have without searching for new value propositions. I'm currently working (albeit in a tremendously half-assed way) on a very obvious movie-related idea because I know I can do it better than the big sites and because the market is enormous.
- webwright 15y ago
  If this isn't on the YC FAQ, it should be. A lot of great companies start small. One of my favorite PG-isms is this: If you can make a simple product for a niche audience and make them amazingly happy, it's clear what you need to do next. Find more people like that. Move into adjacent markets (e.g. Craigslist started as an SF classifieds mailing list, Amazon started with books). If you make a product that makes a huge audience ambivalent, you often have no freakin' clue what to do next. Add features? Take them away? Change your positioning? So imagine if these guys OWNED movie trailers on mobile. Do you think they'd be stuck there? Could they, perhaps, move on to dominate broader short-form video to satiate micro-boredom? Could they then move onto longer form stuff?
  - iamelgringo 15y ago
    There's also a lot of companies that start small, stay small and die of attrition. But, those don't make for sexy blog post reading, however. That's not to detract from the above company.
- nibo 15y ago
jazzychad 15y ago
Congrats on the launch! I've been using the beta for a while and been really impressed. I had an eerily similar idea several months back but never executed on it. I'm so happy to see it come to life. Good luck, Erics!
andrew_null 15y ago
congrats on the launch Eric and eric!
siong1987 15y ago
So, does this mean that both of them will stop working on convore? Or, convore will be discountinued?
- streeter 15y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. Edit: Also, Convore was launched in YC W11. So this transition must have happened a while ago.
- ericflo 15y ago
  Eric and I left Convore a few months ago to start working on Can'tWait!, and Leah is staying with Convore Inc to continue building out that company.
lyime 15y ago
I used to watch movie trailers on trailer.apple.com but I had no idea which of my friends were interested in the same movies. I have been using Can't Wait beta for a few weeks now and its's fun to use. Good way for me to kill some time on transit.
zavulon 15y ago
This is a really bad title on TC. Reading that title made me think "Oh God, not another useless social network!". But then I read the article and realized it's an iPhone app that's actually very useful.
forgotmyuser 15y ago
Looks like a copy of TrailerDen.com lol
josephmosby 15y ago
Having "The Social Network" be the first trailer would be awesomely meta.
Urgo 15y ago
Hah this is funny. I was sitting in the theater this past week hoping there was an app just like this that I could get reminders for trailers I see that I want to make sure I catch the full movie when it comes out. Just wish the android version was out....
finin 15y ago
Trailers make every movie look good, even the ones that turn out to be truly awful. :-/
brianstorms 15y ago
How does MovieClips.com feel about CantWait's use of the trailers it has licensed and posted on YouTube? For instance, here's CantWait's "Midnight in Paris" page on its website: http://cantwa.it/movie/midnight-in-paris/first-trailer-117/ http://cantwa.it/movie/midnight-in-paris/first-trailer-117/ The YouTube movie that is embedded on that page is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_3gIxrcWK8&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_3gIxrcWK8&feature=playe... Which happens to be posted by MovieClips.com, a company that pays the studios to license their trailer data. Is CantWait paying MovieClips.com? Does it pay YouTube? Does it pay the rights holders of the trailers? Here's another example, CantWait's "Spider Man" trailer: http://cantwa.it/movie/the-amazing-spider-man/first-teaser-6/ http://cantwa.it/movie/the-amazing-spider-man/first-teaser-6... It was posted by Sony Pictures on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=upwf8RsyNqQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u... Is Sony Pictures cool with CantWait's use of its trailer within a commercial app and website? I am curious if CantWait is at all concerned about being shut down for commercial redistribution of content from YouTube? Or is CantWait paying YouTube for the content and its bandwidth? What if CantWait scales and YouTube says, enough is enough?

121 points by canistr 15y ago

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! We're happy to answer any questions you have in this thread--ask away. We're very excited to show what we've been working on, and we can't wait (sorry) to show you all where we're headed in the future.

sriramk 15y ago
How do you guys get access to the trailers? Does that involve some licensing or are they freely available? Very nifty app btw - congratulations.
- ericflo 15y ago
  All of our trailers are actually being streamed from YouTube. We're using the YouTube API on the website to build a nice HTML5 player, and then in the app, HTML5 plays using the native player.
  - sriramk 15y ago
    Nice! Why didn't I think of that? :)
  - sriramk 15y ago
    Nice! Why didn't I think of that? :)
  - justincormack 15y ago
    I always assumed you could not do that as the terms of service say You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Service or the Content without YouTube's prior written authorization, unless YouTube makes available the means for such distribution through functionality offered by the Service (such as the Embeddable Player). Am I mistaken?
    - ericflo 15y ago
      We're just using the embeddable player (the iframe version of it) which automatically uses Flash on the web and HTML 5 <video> on iOS http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/iframe_api_reference.html http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/iframe_api_reference.htm...
simonista 15y ago
Weren't you working on Convore a few months ago? Is this from the same team?
- ericflo 15y ago
  It's from 2/3 of that team. Eric and I left to start this in late May-early June and Leah is working at Convore.

olivercameron 15y ago

Can't Wait! is awesome. Movie trailers are actually perfectly sized bits of content to be consumed when you're bored, it also happens to one of the few bits of content I love to see my friends recommend. The app is really well put together too, I've gotten used to apps scrolling tons of images to be rather bad performing, but Can't Wait! scrolls like a champ.

timthorn 15y ago
Am I alone in trying to avoid trailers? I find they tend to give away too much of the story, and always contain the best special effects from the film. I want to be surprised by the movies I see, and trailers act against that.
- megablast 15y ago
  I am sure you are not alone, but there are a significant number of people who enjoy trailers, possible the majority. Trailers can be more entertaining than most films they portray. So what do you go when you see a film, come in 20 mins late?

d0m 15y ago

Seriously, it's the kind of app that make you say "Crap, this is so simple.. but so useful; I wish I had thought of that". There are several other apps that aim to make sharing movies/songs/<name-it> easier.. but starting with movie trailers is a great start. Good luck, have fun!

nibo 15y ago

Really cool as I am addicted to trailers. I would also add a piece to their business model. They could let you browse old movies trailers as well (I would watch them!) and let you rent the movie from Netflix, taking a percentage. What do you think?

zeeg 15y ago
Netflix doesnt charge per rental, the most that they could do is an affiliate signup with the company.

MatthewB 15y ago

Is it just me or are a lot of the recent YC companies extremely niche, almost where they could just be a feature of another website? Maybe I'm just in a negative mood today.

arctangent 15y ago
I don't know whether you are right or not about that. However, I do think it's a good idea to be "extremely niche", especially when the size of your market - in this case, people who like watching movies - is very large. I'm sure that a good movie trailer recommendation system would work well on other sites, but those sites may have already moved past the startup/development phase into business-as-usual, where they are trying to squeeze money out of what they currently have without searching for new value propositions. I'm currently working (albeit in a tremendously half-assed way) on a very obvious movie-related idea because I know I can do it better than the big sites and because the market is enormous.
webwright 15y ago
If this isn't on the YC FAQ, it should be. A lot of great companies start small. One of my favorite PG-isms is this: If you can make a simple product for a niche audience and make them amazingly happy, it's clear what you need to do next. Find more people like that. Move into adjacent markets (e.g. Craigslist started as an SF classifieds mailing list, Amazon started with books). If you make a product that makes a huge audience ambivalent, you often have no freakin' clue what to do next. Add features? Take them away? Change your positioning? So imagine if these guys OWNED movie trailers on mobile. Do you think they'd be stuck there? Could they, perhaps, move on to dominate broader short-form video to satiate micro-boredom? Could they then move onto longer form stuff?
- iamelgringo 15y ago
  There's also a lot of companies that start small, stay small and die of attrition. But, those don't make for sexy blog post reading, however. That's not to detract from the above company.
nibo 15y ago

jazzychad 15y ago

Congrats on the launch! I've been using the beta for a while and been really impressed. I had an eerily similar idea several months back but never executed on it. I'm so happy to see it come to life. Good luck, Erics!

andrew_null 15y ago

congrats on the launch Eric and eric!

siong1987 15y ago

So, does this mean that both of them will stop working on convore? Or, convore will be discountinued?

streeter 15y ago
I was thinking the same thing. Edit: Also, Convore was launched in YC W11. So this transition must have happened a while ago.
ericflo 15y ago
Eric and I left Convore a few months ago to start working on Can'tWait!, and Leah is staying with Convore Inc to continue building out that company.

lyime 15y ago

I used to watch movie trailers on trailer.apple.com but I had no idea which of my friends were interested in the same movies. I have been using Can't Wait beta for a few weeks now and its's fun to use. Good way for me to kill some time on transit.

zavulon 15y ago

This is a really bad title on TC. Reading that title made me think "Oh God, not another useless social network!". But then I read the article and realized it's an iPhone app that's actually very useful.

forgotmyuser 15y ago

Looks like a copy of TrailerDen.com lol

josephmosby 15y ago

Having "The Social Network" be the first trailer would be awesomely meta.

Urgo 15y ago

Hah this is funny. I was sitting in the theater this past week hoping there was an app just like this that I could get reminders for trailers I see that I want to make sure I catch the full movie when it comes out. Just wish the android version was out....

finin 15y ago

Trailers make every movie look good, even the ones that turn out to be truly awful. :-/

brianstorms 15y ago

How does MovieClips.com feel about CantWait's use of the trailers it has licensed and posted on YouTube? For instance, here's CantWait's "Midnight in Paris" page on its website: http://cantwa.it/movie/midnight-in-paris/first-trailer-117/ http://cantwa.it/movie/midnight-in-paris/first-trailer-117/ The YouTube movie that is embedded on that page is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_3gIxrcWK8&feature=player_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_3gIxrcWK8&feature=playe... Which happens to be posted by MovieClips.com, a company that pays the studios to license their trailer data. Is CantWait paying MovieClips.com? Does it pay YouTube? Does it pay the rights holders of the trailers? Here's another example, CantWait's "Spider Man" trailer: http://cantwa.it/movie/the-amazing-spider-man/first-teaser-6/ http://cantwa.it/movie/the-amazing-spider-man/first-teaser-6... It was posted by Sony Pictures on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=upwf8RsyNqQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u... Is Sony Pictures cool with CantWait's use of its trailer within a commercial app and website? I am curious if CantWait is at all concerned about being shut down for commercial redistribution of content from YouTube? Or is CantWait paying YouTube for the content and its bandwidth? What if CantWait scales and YouTube says, enough is enough?