Movie fanatics can now receive personalized movie rating predictions, all thanks to the work of two Gainesville brothers.
Movie4Mi was created in 2011 as an Android app, but in January of this year, the website version of the app officially launched. David Dawkins said the app was a side project he created while he was a pharmacy student at UF.
Alongside his brother, Herbert Dawkins, David created the movie rating system with hopes of bringing justice to the current form of movie ratings.
UF graduate David Dawkins created a personal movie ranking system called Movie4Mi.
“I wanted to create something that could serve myself and others who watch movies,” David said.
Movie review websites like Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and IMDb offer users movie ratings, but the Dawkins
brothers envisioned a website with catered features for users with varying movie preferences.
The website creates movie ratings based on users who have similar movie preferences, rather than offering a general review.
Users log in to Movie4Mi.net through Facebook, Google or anonymously.
They are then prompted to choose five films they like and three they dislike. Users then input the film they want a rating for, and based on the user preferences, the website creates the rating.
“The goal is to shift the kind of way we look at movie reviews and movie ratings, because right now everyone is lumped up,” David said. “It’s a better representation of the probabilities of you liking a movie.”
There are more than 10,000 movies on the website, and anyone can add a movie to the database.
Users who log in through accounts have the advantage of receiving a more personalized experience. The website saves the users’ preferences and caters the movie ratings.
“This is on the side,” Herbert said. “If we make money, that’s great, but we don’t think we will make money. We just want to make something that is useful to improve people’s lives.”
Herbert designed the overall layout of the website, and he said the website is mobile friendly — accessible from any phone with Internet access.
It was created in a little over a month, and since January it has accumulated more than 290 registered users and hundreds or anonymous users. In total, more than 1,800 users have accessed the website.
“I want people to use it and enjoy it; there is nothing like it right now,” Herbert said.
