Welcome to the brand new Criticker.
We’ve been working extremely hard since December, 2006 on the new site. We think you’re going to like it.
Criticker first went online in November, 2005. The original site was small and (according to almost all of our initial users) extremely ugly. Back then, we didn’t know much about building a decent webpage. But, we were willing to learn and, in March of 2006, launched Criticker 2.0. This version was a major improvement. Over the course of the next 17 months, we saw our number of registered users leap to around 8000. Part of the reason was that we substantially increased our film library (to over 14000 films), and added a ton of new features.
But, something was still missing. The site was a major improvement, but a lot of features that people have come to expect weren’t there. The style and navigation were still problems. And so, in December 2006, we began work on a total revamp (codenamed “Gamma”).
We expected to work on Gamma for about 3 months.
9 months later, we launched. Why did it take so long? The main reason was the sheer breadth of new features and updates. We reworked every single page, and rethought every single function. Literally everything has changed. We’re only two people — and with life intermingling, it took a lot longer than expected.
But, now we’ve done it! This blog is just one of the new features at the new Criticker. Others include a forum, user messaging, a shop and completely revamped PSIs and TCIs.
Let us know what you think! Good or bad, please post your comments here.
Thanks! Let’s make Criticker the best recommendation site on the web!
Hi,
I love the relaunch; I had some issues with the PSIs not displaying the correct rating before, & it seems much better.
I have a request for the forums though. I love that there is a topic for every film, actor & director… but it’s overwhelming if you just want to connect with other Critickers, especially for people with wide interests. Can we have a few general forums to just chat about movies in general (e.g. recently saw, rumours, upcoming movies, foreign films, etc.)?
thanks & congratulations!
Laura,
you were the first one to give us feedback after the relaunch, and have made our day. We’re working on an enhancement to give users the option to start “General” topics in the Forums. If you subscribe to the RGS Blog you’ll be one of the first ones to find out when that’s available..
RGS blog?
If you mean this one, I’m putting on my Netvibes page right now.
Laura .. I meant the Criticker Blog of course. I am still getting used to it
.
I’d just like to mention that I’m happy to see this site get an overhaul (not that it was bad before). I won’t comment too much on the new setup since I’m still getting used to navigating it, but I’m very happy about the addition of a forum!
Some good points:
- Way better design (but still not very impressive)
- Feeds, finally
- Blog — hope some cool stuff will land here
Bad points:
- Dynamic menu – I just hate it. And it’s not very user-friendly (usability issues). I would go for a static one
- Blog is not nicely integrated with the site. No shared login for instance.
- In some cases middle click on link in firefox does not open the page in a new tab. Seems like bad javascript usage (javascript:void(0);)
Not sure points:
- Is there some criticker API available? I heard you planned to intriduce it?
- If not, is there finally the function to import ratings from IMDB?