Have you ever cruised the mall alone?  Played basketball by yourself?  Watched a movie without a friend?  I have, and it can still be a good experience, but as far as I’ve been able to tell it’s almost always better with friends.  Whenever I’d move to a new place, even if it was better, I was alone.  I hadn’t made any friends yet.  And it wasn’t until I did that I started to really feel like I’d truly upgraded.

So let’s apply this line of thinking to SeenTh.at.  You might feel like our feature set, design or experience is better than other sites on the web, but also feel that something is missing.  The fact is there’s still so far we can go with what we’re offering in the way of new features, but more importantly there hasn’t really been a way for you to share your activity with your friends on other social networks.  Because we’re in a private BETA test, fans are not able to see “inside” the site without an account.  So if you copy and paste a link to a conversation on SeenTh.at in a tweet or a Facebook update, your friends will just get a login page and likely, having no idea what you intended to point them to, close their browser.  Essentially you’re alone.

Not any more.

Today we’re happy to announce a set of updates that not only improves your general experience with SeenTh.at, but also gets you one step closer to showing your friends what you already know about our community, so they will be excited to join in the fun.

The update includes:

• Ability to share Chatter via Twitter (Facebook and Google+ coming soon)
• Universally-accessible permalinks
• Improved Chatter-posting interface
• Simplified site navigation

For more detail on these updates, you can click here.

We’re still not completely opening the site to the general public, but we want you to be able to start sharing with your friends while we finish some other bits of polish prior to our full launch.

So in celebration of what we think is our most exciting update yet, we’re giving every one of you amazing fans the opportunity to win a “Superhero Summer” prize pack, which includes:

• Marvel’s “The Avengers” four-disc combo (includes Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, DVD and digital copy)
• The Dark Knight Trilogy (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises) on Blu-ray

To enter, make sure you’re following us on Twitter at @seenthatmovie.  Then share a Chatter post to Twitter after connecting your accounts and include the hash tag #weseemovies.  You’re allowed to enter a maximum of once daily, and the winner will be chosen at random from all entries.  We’ll announce the winner on Friday, November 9th at 1pm US Pacific time.  Remember, #weseemovies must show up in the tweet itself, and the tweet must include a link back to a SeenTh.at page.

Lastly, your trusty SeenTh.at team wants to thank you for your support.  We’re consistently buoyed up by your positive comments and excitement.  We realize there’s still so much more to do, but we are amazed by how far we’ve already come, and often can’t sleep because of our excitement for the future.

The SeenTh.at Crew

Ability to share Chatter via Twitter (Facebook and Google+ coming soon)

First, head over to your SeenTh.at “Settings” page.  As you can see, there’s now a pretty little “Connect to Twitter” button.  Facebook and Google+ integration will follow soon.

Click it and you’ll be asked by Twitter to authorize SeenTh.at.  Do so, and you’ll now have the ability to share your Chatter posts with your Twitter followers.  Here’s how that works.

All Chatter forms (SeenThat, MustSee, Movie Chatter, etc.) now include an “Also Share on:” button so you can share updates on Twitter.

Clicking this button before you submit your Chatter post means that any comment you’ve left on the Chatter post itself will show up in your Twitter feed, along with a URL that points to our “universally-accessible permalinks.”  For example:

If I were to post…

…my Twitter feed would show…

“This was the best movie of the summer! http://seenth.at/chatter/###”

…and clicking that URL would take me to…

…which is what we were referring to as a “universally-accessible permalink” in the previous post.  So what’s that?

Universally-accessible permalinks

UAP’s are pages (as shown above) that are accessible by fans that don’t yet have a SeenTh.at account.  That way you can share the gist of your Chatter post with friends/followers in a beautiful and engaging way (how cool is that backdrop?).  If you’re logged in when looking at one of these pages, you can still use the actions you’re familiar with by hovering over the poster, as well as join the conversation and leave comments as you would in Chatter.  If you’re not logged in, clicking anywhere on the page will prompt you to log in or sign up.

If you’d like to access a UAP on your own at any time, just click the Chatter icon on any Chatter post, and then click “Permalink.”

Improved Chatter-posting interface & simplified site navigation

We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear when it comes to making site navigation and Chatter posting easier, and we think we’ve rolled out a nice improvement with this update.

We consolidated all the different Chatter types into one form that looks like this…

The form fields will update based on the type of Chatter you want to post.  If you’re confused about what each icon means, look to the header for direction.  In order, top to bottom, the Chatter types are: Movie Chatter, Quotes, SeenThat, OwnThat, MustSee, Recommend, and Review.

We also updated the site navigation from…

…to…

Everything you could do before, you can still do, but we’ve compacted it all into one tool bar that sticks to the top of your browser window.  This is important, because it gives you more content on the screen without having to scroll.  Notice too the “Post Activity” button.  Rather than having click to the Chatter feed in order to post an update from the “Post Chatter” dropdown at the top left of Chatter…

…you can post Chatter from anywhere on the site.  If you wish to access your profile or settings, clicking on your avatar brings up those options…

…and notifications work the same as they did previously…

We hope you enjoy the improvements to the site.  If you have any questions or comments, as always, you can email us directly at beta@seenth.at, click on the feedback link on the site, or leave your thoughts here in the comments.

Enjoy!

The SeenTh.at Crew

Edit Chatter posts or comments:

All Chatter posts show an icon depicting the Chatter type, in this case generic movie Chatter.

As you hover over Chatter posts you’ve created, the icon will switch to an edit icon. You can see it’s present on the comment that was shared as well.

Clicking on the edit icon allows you to either edit or delete the post.

Choosing to edit the post brings up a familiar window. Click to submit changes.

You're also able to edit comments from the dedicated "comments" page for each post.

Edit Reviews:

You can also edit or delete reviews from their dedicated pages.

So that’s pretty much that.  If you feel so inclined, head back through your Chatter and tag quotes and Chatter with the proper movie.

Let us know if you see any issues that arise.

The SeenTh.at Crew

Happy Friday (at least here in the US)!  It’s a pretty big day around the world as the 2012 Summer Olympics have kicked off in London.  Thanks to our friends in the UK as you host the world for a short while.

This year’s games are sure to provide an exciting couple of weeks, and here at SeenTh.at we’re planning on providing some excitement of our own.  Since we launched our BETA, we’ve been listening to your feedback and have some exciting updates coming over the next month or so, the first of which went live today.  We’re calling it “Chatter/Lists 2.0,” and we think you’ll be happy about it.

Here are some of the ideas/suggestions we’ve heard since we launched the BETA:

• Movie posters in Chatter/Lists don’t always show titles, so there should be a title present somewhere on the tickets.
• Users intuitively want to click on the poster to get more information, but since the ticket “flips” to show actions on hover, that’s not possible.  The “About Movie” link is hard to find at the bottom of that list of actions.
• The “flipping” of Chatter/List posters on hover is jolting and not smooth.

• Actions in search results and list view (where there is no poster present) require you to hover in order to see all of the actions.  This can be an annoying user experience.

• Users should be able to tag a movie in any Chatter post, including news/links/quotes.

• When viewing a list in “grid view”, you have to hover over the ticket for a couple of seconds to get a “details” flyout.  This felt clunky and annoying.

Another quick note, we also updated the “infinite scroll” code so that you can only load 3 “pages” of Chatter at a time.  Doing so helps from having hundreds of Chatter tickets up at once, which can really hurt site performance overall.  If you want to see older posts, just click the “Load more Chatter” bar when you reach the bottom of Chatter and it will load a new page.  To get back to newer posts, just refresh the page or scroll back up to the top of Chatter and click the “Reload” button.

We hope you like what we’ve done.  We’re excited to roll out several other updates we’re working on over the coming weeks.

Enjoy your weekend and go USA!

The SeenTh.at Crew

Let us know your thoughts on the update in the comments!

March 19th, 2012 – SeenTh.at launches closed BETA to #VIP200
March 22nd, 2012 – BetaLi.st publishes interview with yours truly
March 23rd, 2012 – Round 2 of 400 BETA invites hit email inboxes #VIP600
March 24th – 2012 – Auto-complete in Chatter forms is now functional
March 28th, 2012 – You can now sort lists by alpha or release year

April 11th, 2012 – Connections and user search are now live
April 27th, 2012 – Commenting feature is now live in Chatter
April 28th, 2012 – Round 3 of 400 BETA invites hit email inboxes #VIP1000
April 29th, 2012 – Round 4 of 600 BETA invites hit email inboxes #VIP1400
April 29th, 2012 – Infinite scrolling is live in Chatter

May 3rd, 2012 – Round 5 of 600 BETA invites hit email inboxes #VIP2000
May 5th, 2012 – Cast/Crew search is now live on SeenTh.at
May 13th, 2012 – Round 6 of 500 BETA invites hit email inboxes #VIP2500
May 13th, 2012 – Ratings are now live on SeenTh.at
May 15th, 2012 – Review Chatter has direct link to full review. Review Chatter also now shows up in corresponding movie’s Chatter
May 18th, 2012 – JP becomes SeenTh.at’s first full-time employee
May 25th, 2012 – Comment notifications are now live
May 26th, 2012 – Infinite scrolling is live on notifications page

Whether it looks it or not, our team feels as though we’ve come a long way in a short time.  We also recognize that there are still thousands of you waiting for your chance to get in and start using the site.  We haven’t forgotten about you, and plan to release some additional invites soon.  Hang in there.

For those of you that have been in the site (some longer than others), I’d humbly ask that you take a moment to complete a brief survey here.  It will help us understand what’s working, what’s not, how you’re using the site and what’s still missing.  Your insight will only help us prioritize more effectively, so thanks in advance for taking the time.

We’ve got more updates coming soon, a couple of which we’re EXTREMELY excited about, so stay tuned!

JP

"Ratings? Where we're going, we don't need ratings (but we'll have them anyway)."

Let’s be honest.  What’s in a rating?  What does “8″ really mean?  Is a movie rated 8 (or 80%, or 4 stars) really better than a movie rated at 6 (or 60%, or 3 stars)?  Really think about it.  What’s in a rating?

Ratings are aggregate scores that are supposed to reflect the overall sentiment toward a movie.  It’s meant to be a tool by which users can determine whether a movie is worth the time, or not.  So while an overall rating for a film is an aggregate of each rating each individual gave that movie, each individual rating is an aggregate of each individual sentiment felt or considered by the person rating the movie.  “Well, I liked the direction, but the music was terrible.  The acting was so-so and the special effects were amazing.  Plot was thin, but I really didn’t expect much anyway.  I give it a 6/10.”  All of those sentiments rolled in to one number.

The problem with ratings is the lack of context of what went into assigning the “score.”  If I’m in the mood for a great special effects movie, a number doesn’t tell me much.  Maybe if my friend who loves special effects told me a certain film was 5/5 stars, I could infer that it had great special effects.  But most of the time, we don’t even get that much.

So what’s the point?

Well, we see movies, right?  All of us.  And most of us don’t care to spend time watching movies that would be considered a waste of time.  So the point is, we deserve to have quick access to as much information about a film as possible; more than just a score.  And we’re doing what we can to make that as easy as possible.

For example:

Seeing the number of times a movie was recommended gives you an idea of how watchable it really is. Of course, there will always be ratings.

Get more in-depth reviews with just a click. The better written reviews bubble to the top with a reddit-like voting system. Top critic reviews populate the left column of each film's "Reviews" page. Blue means positive, red means negative.

Filter Chatter to the movie you want to know more about, and see what everyone is saying.

So will this all work?  Will it really replace ratings?  Probably not completely.  But our hope is that it makes more relevant information accessible in a shorter amount of time.  And it will only get better and more powerful with time.

Oh, and remember that we’re launching in a couple weeks?  Soon you’ll get to try it out yourself

JP

Some of you have been following us longer than others.  A lot of you recently joined the group after reading about us on Mashable.  Regardless, you’re all ready for something that’s eluded us all for months now:

The SeenTh.at Launch

Well today, it shall be written and it shall be known that SeenTh.at will launch its closed/private BETA on March 19th, 2012.  On that day we’ll start releasing invites to approximately 200 users, with additional invites going out daily from there.

That might not be what some of you wanted to hear.  Trust me when I say we ALL want this thing sooner than later, but from the beginning we’ve promised that we’re going to do this right.  We want each of you to have a mind-blowing experience the first time you log in and start checking off movies, organizing your lists and discovering more films you simply must see.  In order to feel 100% confident that you’ll have the most fulfilling experience we can provide, we’ve proverbially pushed and shoved each other internally to decide on a launch date that satisfies both the urgency we feel to get this product in your hands, as well as the standard of quality we hold ourselves to.

So there it is.  Sitting right in front of you, less than a month away.  A site and an experience I can personally attest is SO EASY to get lost in.

In fact, here’s a little taste to hold you over:

Let’s get ready to have some fun.

JP

Hey there…it’s been a while. Sorry if it seems like we’ve been a bit absent lately. We never meant to make you feel neglected…quite the opposite, in fact. We love you. We love your excitement and your enthusiasm. One of our favorite things to do lately is “eaves drop” on Twitter conversations you’re all having about our project. The sentiment is overwhelmingly positive and that makes us feel terrible.

Yes, I meant to say “terrible.” The fact that you’re all so great makes us feel terrible. You’re so excited. We’re so excited. But we keep feeling like that parent who continually says to their eager young ones, “Maybe tomorrow?”  First it was August, then it was early Fall, which became late Fall, which turned into end of year.  Yeah, we’ve noticed too…we’re almost two weeks into 2012 and still no SeenTh.at BETA launch.

But PLEASE…don’t fret.

Don’t lose the fire.

Stay postive.  Stay excited.  Stay patient.

I wish I could show you what I’ve seen.  I wish you had the access I have to the energy, vision and goals that are a part of every team meeting.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it riiiiiiight….now:

WE ARE MOVIE FANATICS THAT ARE BUILDING OUR DREAM SITE

An soon…VERY soon, you’ll get to be a part of the magic.

Here’s to a great year.  2012 holds a lot in store for all of us.

JP

Throughout history, there have been several long and arduous journeys that mankind has undertaken, all in the interest of making life better.  Sometimes these journeys are simply a a testament to ourselves of what we’re capable of.  Other times, they’re made out of necessity.  Regardless of the motivation, we seem to consistently seek out and take on the challenges that initially seem impossible, but once conquered, define us.

I’ve shared briefly in our first blog post how the journey of SeenTh.at began.  The hope will always be that completion of our goal,

“To provide movie lovers a way to socially enrich their interaction with movies beyond the viewing experience”

will fill a common need amongst film fans, even those that don’t now realize what they’re missing .

I’m proud to share that we’ve had another great month of development, and we’re that much closer to our goal of launching a private beta by Christmas.  For those of you that didn’t get a chance to visit the blog in October, we revealed both the movie detail page and user profile designs.  Speaking of which, some people have asked me if I think we’ve given away too much about how the site will work, or what it will look like.  My short (and only) answer is no, I don’t.  I want you all to get excited and to join us on this journey by telling us what works and what doesn’t.  The best way I know how to do that is to forgo the mystery and just be open.  There’s been a lot of praise thus far (which, by the way is great and keeps us motivated), but we’d love to hear any constructive feedback as well.  We are building this for you too, after all .

The only unfortunate side effect of sharing so much with you this early, is that now you’re hooked with nothing to do about it.  You’ve seen some exciting stuff, and can’t use any of it.  Trust us, we know EXACTLY how you feel.  But there are a few things you can do now to prepare for the launch of SeenTh.at.  Just follow this simple list of to do’s, and you’ll be ahead of the curve come launch:

•    Keep track of movies you watch from now until launch.  We’re going to give you the option to add details around each viewing (who you saw the movie with, when you saw it, etc.) so don’t leave that to your memory.

•    Jot down any movies you’re dying to see (whether new or old).  We’re giving all users the ability to create a MustSee list right off the bat.

•    Know your top 5/10/20 movies of all time.  People who find you on SeenTh.at are going to want to know whether or not your opinion should matter to them.  Showing off your personal best-of-the-best is a great way to let them know.

•    Tell your friends about SeenTh.at.  It’s hard to socially enrich your experience with movies if you don’t have anyone to share your passion with or recommend movies to.

Anyway, keep the feedback coming and we’ll keep pushing through this tough road of development.  I have a feeling it will all be worth it in the end.

Peace, love and happy movie watching.

JP