Developing Mobile App for Rating Movies: Social Network for Movie Buffs

Social networking platforms aren’t new to the world. By the end of December 2019, nearly 3.75 Billion people were using at least one social media channel. In fact, in most instances, your social media handle is your first point of contact for people you have met for the first time. Knowingly or unknowingly, you convey a lot with your personal social media account, like:

• The way you perceive the world
• Subjects that interest you
• Content that you intake
• Topics you are vocal about

Apart from giants like Facebook and Twitter, there are numerous social network platforms based on specific niches. These are basically peer-to-peer communities with shared knowledge on specific subjects and can build their own fan-base with their grip on the topics.

Building reputation in Peer to peer communities

Unlike the giants among Social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, peer to peer communities don’t have many celebrity figures. The majority of the users are professionals in the field and love to guide the newcomers in more than a way.

Users can follow each other and can receive regular news feeds from their ideals. They can interact with each other via comments, likes and personal chats. A common user can easily climb to fame while sharing his share of expertise.

Our in-house iOS development team recently had an opportunity to develop a similar social networking app for movie buffs where diehard movie watchers can share their movie reviews with people looking out for unbiased movie feedbacks. The following image represents how the users can find average ratings of the movie and the reviews for each movie:

Let us get started!!

Social Network for Movie buffs: The need for building the app

Reviews play a major role for most businesses. The fact that as huge as 84% of people trust online reviews and 68% of them making really quick decisions by making an opinion within the first 6 reviews, is worth a concern as how much a good review can help you sell more.

The fact that most viewers are dependent on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB ratings while deciding to watch a movie can never be neglected. And that is one reason for every 100 dollars spent at making the movie, movie producers reserve 50 bucks only for selling it. However, fake bad reviews are a nightmare to them. On the other hand, paid reviews can be distasteful in most occasions.

At this, it is crucial to have a more reliable movie review platform that rates the movies allowing the users to find the best movies on their watchlist and the producers getting the deserved attention for their movies.

Social network app for Movies buffs are peer-to-peer communities where movie enthusiasts share their genuine experience about the movies and rate them for various factors and add their reviews. The communities are more reliable with the fact as the end-users form critic and audience at the same time offering the much-needed transparency at reviewing any movie.

But how can one assure that the reviews come from the right sources? That’s where our client needed us to resolve the conundrum and design a social network mobile app for movie ratings and reviews.

Movie rating app development for social networking

The basic idea was to build an iOS app where the users can rate and review movies of their choice. At the same time, the movie review app has to behave like a social media app in many ways. And we found a sorted solution that meets all the needs correctly:

Assuring genuine movie ratings with assessment

This was the first concern. The app had to allow reviews only from genuine movie buffs. We had to make sure that the reviews only come from reliable sources. And, as said before, the users make the ultimate source for resources.

We added basic questions related to the movies. A series of questions are asked to the user before reviewing. This is done to ensure that the user has actually watched the movie and understands the characters right. The quiz assesses the user based on the number of correct answers. If the user surpasses the 50% score, he is allowed to review the movie.

The time is limited to stop them from googling out the answer. The concept is simple: a user qualifies to review only if he has watched the movie, otherwise, he has no right to review it.

To enable the same, our iOS developers ran algorithms to assess the questions, the final score and the longest streak of right answers to qualify an individual.

The user is allowed to take a re-test in the next 10 seconds for free. However, to keep the reliability of the user at its place, the app randomizes the list of questions and adds more questions in the assessment.

Reputation building in the mobile app for Movie rating

Users can build reputation on the app as a movie critic. All they have to do is review as many movies as they can with the first condition as watching as many movies. The app adds a reputation tag with a growing number of reviews.

The app keeps a count of the number of movie reviews posted by the user, assigns Prestige Points and the title. While Novice represents the lowest rank, Master is the top most rank.

The picture above displays the profile of a user with his details, badge, ratings and reviews, and much more.

Create Movie Club

Reputation building on the social network movie app comes with an added advantage. Users will follow you. They will look up to you for reviews on any movie. More than anybody else, they will love to consider your take on the movie.

At this, we designed a separate space, called Movie Club. The users can follow you on a click. The users can search a movie and check all the reviews in a go. Movie club allows you to find reviews of your favorite movie reviewer.

The following example speaks of the same. We can find the reviews posted by all the users on a screen. Under Movie club, we find the review of the Movie buff we follow.

Moreover, users can receive personalized feeds from their favorite reviewers. The app offers a scrollable feed with movie review posted by the said reviewers. A big plus point to the Movie reviewers as they can reach out to the users directly with every new post.

Like and comment on the reviews

Adding reviews for the movie isn’t all the Social networking app for movie reviews does. Movie reviews can be liked and commented upon by other users. They can do that with simple buttons under every post, the very way Facebook and Twitter have been doing for years.

Share reviews on Facebook and Twitter

From the smaller pond to the larger pond, the users can share the movie reviews on bigger social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, directly. The post is shared with every detail- the number of stars, the reviewer’s score before rating the movie, Streak of correct answers and the feedback for the movie.

In the example below, we shared a similar post from the app to a Facebook friend via Messenger. The last screen is how the Facebook friend receives the review.

What does the Movie rating app hold for the users?

With all those features, the movie rating app finds itself as an absolute platform for Movie critics and the audience. The app offers a great platform for the prospective movie watchers as well.

Categorizing Movies

Recommending movies forms the base of the app. Reviewing follows. The app recommends movies by categorizing them. User can find the most reviewed and popular movies right on the first screen.

In the picture below, we find the ten movies that were being reviewed for the most number of time during the past 7 days. The category highlights the movies that top the popularity charts.

Further, the movies are categorized under various labels like Trending, Gold Standard and the genre they belong to, like Action, Drama, Comedy, Science Fiction, and more. The users can find movies more easily. For manual searching, we have a search bar at the top.

Redirecting to Streaming options

Proceeding with the Recommendations and the reviews, the only part users are left out with is actually watching the movie. The app can redirect you to the best streaming options from Google and movie trailers from Youtube. Users can readily find the right sources to watch the entire movie or get a glimpse of the same.

With that many features, our custom-designed movie rating app qualifies as a complete social network platform.

Designed for both the Mobile app platforms

The app is targeted for mobile apps across both the OS platforms- Android and iOS. The app is designed using SDK files of respective platforms rendering a clutter-free user experience across both the OS platforms.

In the past 10+ years of professional experience, the Mobile app development team at The Brihaspati infotech has developed mobile app solutions for several business niches allowing the clients to provide an excellent mobile experience for the end-users. We have mentioned a similar Mobile application for Restaurant booking where the users can book themselves a seat in their locality with a tap.

If your business has similar needs, you can hire Android app developers from us.

Final words on developing Social network app for Movie buffs

Movie buffs are an asset to the movie enthusiasts. In a world full of paid endorsements, movie watchers ask for unbiased feedbacks for an excellent movie time. Similar social network apps tick all the right boxes leaving the enthusiasts with the right platform to share their thoughts.

If you are planning to develop a similar mobile application, you can contact us or drop us an email.