Decentralized Movie Database: A Major Hive Opportunity

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(Edited)

It is hard to tell a missed opportunity until a vast period of time passed. For this reason, we have to look at things through a forecaster's eyes to be able to see whether it will work out.

To me, one of the biggest opportunities with Hive is that we have a decentralized text database that is available to us. These can be built at no direct cost other than having the available resource credits. At the same time, a front end can be constructed to pull the data.

This is a process we see done all over the Internet. The difference is the data is housed on servers owned or controlled by a particular company. Hence, the data is not free. Therefore, without immutable and transparent, we have the ability to manipulate.

And that is exactly what is done.

In this article we are going to discuss a grand opportunity for Hive that exemplifies what I am referring to.

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Movie Lovers Are Being Misled

Over the years, sites such as International Movie Database (IMDB) and Rotten Tomatos served as guides for people researching movies. These had information on different films, along with television shows. Due to the two-way nature of Web 2.0, people were able to rate the movies (or shows) as well as leave comments.

So far everything looks good.

The problem is these are centralized databases. Someone is in full control of them. One entity at the forefront is Amazon. The company purchased IMDB years ago. That means a company that broadcasts films and shows, while also producing them, is in ownership of one of the largest information sites pertaining to that industry.

Does the phrase "conflict of interest" come to mind?

What are the chances that Amazon allows their productions to be openly slammed without doing anything? I would say none. Therefore, we can presume that it will leave comments and provide votes that position their works in a better light.

Here is a clear example where a lack of transparency is working to a companies advantage.

Of course, movie lovers are the ones who are paying the price due to being misled.

Find A Need And Fill It

As we can see, there is a major need here. We have sites that draw a lot of traffic yet we know a portion of the data is completely fabricated. Here is where blockchain provides a better solution.

This is where Hive comes in. It is one of the few blockchains that can offer this solution. To start, it does offer text storage above simply financial transactions. It does it without the need for a smart contract.

Another reason is the lack of transaction fees. When storing data, the idea of having to pay a fee for every entry, including updates, quickly becomes unworkable.

Therefore, Hive it is.

Naturally, something like this built would help to change the narrative around blockchain and, perhaps, cryptocurrency. We would see how there is utility in these networks. It could also serve as an onboarding tool since comments and voting would require a Hive account.

At the same time, all of this could be transparent since we already have polling on Hive. This was created by Leofinance. With that, all votes are registered so we can see who placed them. This could be incorporated into a product like this, providing the transparency that is lacking.

We also could do things such as limiting the votes to on per account. This would make manipulation that much more difficult.

In other words, there are a lot of features that could be added, making this a viable solution. For example, could comments be eligible for rewards through Hive's Proof-of-Brain (PoB)? Certainly that is another feature we could add.

As soon as we tap into this blockchain, all resident on the base layer is available.

IMDB On The Blockchain

How would something like this look?

It is really a simple premise.

The data would be loaded onto Hive through a series of posts. Each post would serve as the individual page for the movie, actor/actress, or show. Here we would place the relevant data including links to other articles on Hive pertaining to that topic. We know there are people writing reviews on CineTV which could be linked.

Suddenly, we are providing a greater value simply because we have reviews by ordinary people, i.e. the fans. In keeping with the nature of this database, the links are all on chain, hence providing full transparency.

It is amazing how much data and information is already available to us for a project like this.

Another key factor could be the creation of a website (or front end). This could be used to try and rank in the search engines. As always, linking would be crucial, both internal and external. Of course, if this becomes popular, it would be a way to tout it as a transparent alternative to what is out there.

As we know, the movie going and television watching population is huge.

In Conclusion

We know cryptocurrency gets all the attention. That is because most people are in it for the money and are not interested in building anything. It is a mindset that carried over to Hive. Even projects that are in operation tend to focus upon the tokenomics and not the technology.

It is something that people say tongue in cheek about being here for the technology but here is an example of where it does completely alter the landscape. We can see how review sites are much better served being on blockchain. The immutability and transparency offered makes these sites less likely to be gamed. Thus, people can have more trust in the information being provided.

Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest. If this an easy task? Absolutely not. However, it does bring a completely new level to the entire concept of rating or review sites.


If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and rehive.

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29 comments
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I have wondered about this too. Services like IMDB used to be community projects, but got bought up. I just wonder how the data would be maintained. One method is to have a specific account that will host the posts. People could submit updates, perhaps via comments, that would be merged in. It needs some moderators to run it, but without that you risk spam attacks. Having a dedicated site could allow to control over submission format to make life easier. People could vote on the comments to reward contributors.

There would still be some centralisation to this, but it is hard to totally avoid.

If someone built this for movies it could be adapted for books, games and other media.

Of course there are more open versions via things like Wikipedia, but they have their own issues in hosting the data.

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To me it would entail its own website. The data would be hosted onchain. This would tie into comments so people could post their views. That is transparent. Then voting could be implemented, also creating transparency.

Yes there would be centralization at the app level but at least not with the data. Using something like Leopolls would mean it all resides on chain and anyone could replicate the service if they wanted.

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I would hope people are looking into implementing such things. For now I am unclear on how it could work, so I'm just tossing out ideas :)

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I wasn't even aware that Amazon now owns IMDB. I've noticed some movies there that aren't worth their ratings and some that are great movies but they have little to low ratings.

It is really hard to trust any information that's not being hosted on a blockchain these days. I think your forecast about having something like imdb would be a good idea and help more people see things differently compared to having to see what's trending on the charts thinking it's something of value whereas it's all gimmicks meant to mislead people.

There are also other areas we might not be seeing now but sooner or later would be more in the open. A decentralized IMDB would be cool.

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Yeah I was late to the Amazon news also.

But it isnt surprising. Amazing how much people trust without known the con that is taking place.

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So, Amazon bought IMDB and we didn't know? OK. 😷😷
Yes, the idea of Hive storage for video is possible, I reeber the days of Dtube then when they were asking users to migrate there video content, I think a dev on Hive then suggested that why can't we have a Hive decentralized indegenious storage system on its own and not be at the mercy of another third party.

Seriously, the possibilities that lies on the blockchain are many, we can't exhaust it all.

@cinetv guys can look into this deeply if it's what they can do, who knows, that might be the big break that will give Hive more visibility both on chain 🔗 and off chain.

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Most people are looking up IMDB and/or Rotten Tomatoes without knowing who owns these websites. Most people do not even care. They are not looking (and probably will not look either) for alternatives.

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True, but if the database created here can get enough clicks, it'll start coming up the ranks similar to IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. Additionally, if people have the incentive of the opportunity to get paid to leave reviews (and the payment wouldn't be influenced by anyone in the movie industry), this could be an even more powerful factor.

Remember when people used to be able to leave reviews not just on movies, but also communicate through message boards back in the day? There was a lot more lively discussion back then, and you'd see a lot more back and forth. They took that feature away in 2017. That could be implemented here instead.

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That is true. Most dont know or care.

Of course, how often are we guilty of that too?

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This depends on what we are talking about. Sometimes we do not know important things about what/who we love. Not necessarily because we do not care about it/him/her. Probably it is rather more often that we simply do not know about it, and/or we do not even think about it.

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An excellent use case! It's good to see a new practical idea.

@raymondspeaks: this can be incorporated into your ongoing Cine project.

@drax: I can see you being the main writer/reviewer of movies on this database! 😁

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@drax has a ton of articles that could be tied to each page. His stuff is excellent.

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Thanks. I actually had many reviews stored on IMDb via Usenet posts between 1998 and 2005. Most of them are gone due to link rot. HIVE-based alternative to IMDb could prevent such occurences.

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Amazing idea and one that could really take a great shape. So many possibilities to tackle what Hive has to offer.

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Honestly when Cine released this was more of what I was expecting and not just another cookie cutter front end. Would be awesome to have something like this on hive along with so many other projects the power would be massive and I'm sure coding cost wouldn't be all that crazy.

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Yep we failed to see evolution.

Most of it would be getting the data on chain. After that, it is nothing more than a front end (website) pulling the data. The operations like voting and commenting take place on chain.

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An interesting concept, to be sure, but this is an example of taking a product that's matured into it's accepted, and corporated, phase and trying to reinvent it. Since the concept of Hive is centered around cryptocurrency and Tokens, why not create a database to do for those assets what IMDb does for movies? Make a site that fully spells out the plot, actors and history of any token/coin.

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Wow Amazon owns IMBD!

This is an amazing idea. There's so much flexibility with text as the main form of content you can have threads and even video reviews.

I actually discovered some really great content after reding reviews on Hive.
Iand I've started writing movie reviews on and off in the movies and tv shows channel. I told myself that I spend so much time watching Netflix and Prime so why not!

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Great example of practical use of blockchain. I myself have made use of IMDB many times in the past, but did not know it had been sold. Congratulations!

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Thanks for the insightful article. I agree that Hive can be a great platform to host opinion sites. It's true that the current opinion sites are controlled by big players, which results in a bias towards the content they want to promote. On Hive, there is a chance for these opinions to provide a true picture of what the populace actually thinks.

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This means that Amazon owns a lot of things... i never knew that they own IMBD

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IMDB is much more than a movie database. It is literally a Actor database and contact app for producers in some way.

Hard to copy, i would say impossible. Endusers use the rating but thats the tip of the iceberg.

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The hive tech is actually brilliant for these things and can be the game changer.
Great post.

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My previous @v4vapp proposal has expired. I have a new one which is running but unfunded right now. I'm still running @v4vapp and all my other services.

I've just updated v4v.app and I'm getting ready for some exciting new features after the next hard fork.

Please consider asking your friends to vote for prop #265 or consider unvoting the return vote.

For understandable reasons in the current crypto climate it is harder to get funded by the DHF, I accept this so I'm asking a wider audience for help again. I'll also add that I power up Hive every day and usually power up larger amounts on 1st of the Month. I'm on Hive for ideological reasons much more than for only economic benefit.

Additionally you can also help with a vote for Brianoflondon's Witness using KeyChain or HiveSigner

If you have used v4v.app I'd really like to hear your feedback, and if you haven't I'd be happy to hear why or whether there are other things you want it to do.