breadcrumb arrow home | blog

Never forget what you were watching

Posted: 06/01/10

An image of Never forget what you were watching

Last year was a big year at blinkbox (the movie and TV streaming website), this site went from a small number of visitors to over a million by December. The movies and TV available on the site grew proportionate to the increase in numbers on the site; but there were also some more subtle changes that took place to improve the usability of the site...

A great one for me was the player 'remembering' where I was in a video; asking me if I'd like to continue watching videos I hadn't quite finished. This was achieved fairly simply through the use of the Flash Player Local Shared Object, being careful not to capture any sensitive information about the viewer.

Later, we embellished this feature some more, by adding a control to the blinkbox homepage that allows the user to see the last 4 things they were watching on the site, as well as telling them how much is left to watch.

The control allows users to remove all viewing history stored in the Local Shared Object with a click, making it easier for users to clear their blinkbox Shared Objects than browser cookie clearing!

We also introduced a new way for users to view the movies and TV episodes they've purchased; creating a Flash-based application to create a 'virtual video library'. We felt this metaphor was visually more appealing, and held more value with users and a static list.

Finally, there was the Video Jigsaw... Not something that was specifically aimed at improving the usability of the video content, more a bit of fun that was equally fun to develop. Try 60 pieces if you're feeling brave :)

Whilst very simple, it's added extras like these that improve the relationship that sites like blinkbox have with their users - giving them additional reasons to choose IPTV over regular broadcast.

2010 will be a very interesting time for IPTV services, as we see the emergence of new standards and platforms that will make the transition from computers to devices like TVs and set-top boxes smooth.

Blinkbox is the UK home for big studios like Warner Bros. and Universal providing high-quality movie content like The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and Star Trek; whilst organisations like the BBC and All3media provide great TV like Shameless and Top Gear.

Watch movies & TV straightaway on blinkbox

Keywords for this post: blinkbox, iptv, vod, video, movies, tv, online, flash, streaming