PSA: Box Office Mojo Redesign ... Numbers Saves The Day With Theater Counts

[Plain Old Tele]

2 hours ago, redfirebird2008 said:

I can't get the sorting on daily numbers to work. It's showing from smallest to largest, even when I tell it to sort from largest to smallest. What a joke. 

 

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/date/2019-10-25/?ref_=bo_hm_rd

I’m on mobile, so maybe it’s not the same, but when I clicked TD (far left column) it sorted correctly. 

[Webslinger]

1 hour ago, Plain Old Tele said:

I’m on mobile, so maybe it’s not the same, but when I clicked TD (far left column) it sorted correctly. 

Yup, though it's omitting the figures for week-to-week drops (which I care about with the Friday estimates) and theater averages. It'll be interesting to see whether the weekend estimate chart tomorrow follows suit.

[MikeQ]

18 hours ago, DeeCee said:

Sean Saulsbury:

 

“It finally happened. Eleven years after Brandon Gray and I sold Box Office Mojo to Amazon/IMDb in 2008, they finally released a complete revamp of the site, updating the design and backend so that it appears to be fully integrated with the IMDb database.

 

When I teamed with Brandon Gray and we formed Mojo as a company in 2002, I took on the task of putting all the box office data into a database (previously it had been updated in Microsoft’s Front Page, believe it or not). Much of the code base that was running up until the just-released IMDb Pro refresh was written between 2002 and 2008 (IMDb didn’t do many updates after the acquisition, other than remove features). That means some of that code was SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD, including an antiquated single-user back end system written in FileMaker Pro (version 5 or 6).

 

The site had become clunky, with missing features and abandoned content (such as screen counts on weekend charts). Anyone using the site regularly complained about a frequent message that the site was “being updated” and to “check back soon.”  We lived with it.”

 

https://www.seancast.com/movies/boxofficemojo-redesign-2019/

Sean’s article is a great read - I encourage people to read it.

 

“HOWEVER — and this is a big however — what they chose to put behind the IMDb Pro paywall makes little sense to me, and breaks a huge value Mojo once had, editorially speaking: integrated data. Our original team’s site design philosophy was always: every chart should be accessible within two or three clicks. Moving major content to a completely different website, IMDb Pro, breaks that integrated and unified experience. Why not just let Pro users just log into their IMDb accounts and view this stuff on Mojo?

 

But a deeper criticism here is one of editorial focus and understanding of the core vision of Box Office Mojo. Overlooking a key element of box office reporting, namely, theater counts, illustrates a myopic view the product. Perhaps theater counts were not highly trafficked on Mojo, so they were left on the cutting room floor? If this were behind the Pro paywall, that would be one thing, but any hardcore weekly box office tracker knows that breaking theater counts news is essential.”

 

And much more that he articulates very well.

 

Peace,

Mike

[JB33]

Have to laugh. Under the Changes tab in the calendar section they list Raya and the Last Dragon as having moved from June 19, 2020 to November 25, 2020. Umm, wasn't Raya always scheduled for November 25, due to the fact that Soul is scheduled for June 19?

[filmlover]

11 minutes ago, JB33 said:

Have to laugh. Under the Changes tab in the calendar section they list Raya and the Last Dragon as having moved from June 19, 2020 to November 25, 2020. Umm, wasn't Raya always scheduled for November 25, due to the fact that Soul is scheduled for June 19?

[The Panda]

Looks like the Numbers is being receptive to new users.

 

Wonderful, no need to go to Mojo again.

[DAJK]

I will say I'm glad this whole thing happened on one of the more boring weekends of the year. Makes for an easier transition than if they did this on Endgame or Rise of Skywalker's OW. 

[Webslinger]

21 minutes ago, DAJK said:

I will say I'm glad this whole thing happened on one of the more boring weekends of the year. Makes for an easier transition than if they did this on Endgame or Rise of Skywalker's OW. 

I'm guessing their corporate overlords didn't know enough about box office to pick the optimal weekend to troll the nerds. 

 

Edited October 27, 2019 by Webslinger

[Ryan Reynolds]

reddit trying to rebuild mojo , i don't think that will end well

[lab276]

23 hours ago, DeeCee said:

Sean Saulsbury:

 

“It finally happened. Eleven years after Brandon Gray and I sold Box Office Mojo to Amazon/IMDb in 2008, they finally released a complete revamp of the site, updating the design and backend so that it appears to be fully integrated with the IMDb database.

 

When I teamed with Brandon Gray and we formed Mojo as a company in 2002, I took on the task of putting all the box office data into a database (previously it had been updated in Microsoft’s Front Page, believe it or not). Much of the code base that was running up until the just-released IMDb Pro refresh was written between 2002 and 2008 (IMDb didn’t do many updates after the acquisition, other than remove features). That means some of that code was SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD, including an antiquated single-user back end system written in FileMaker Pro (version 5 or 6).

 

The site had become clunky, with missing features and abandoned content (such as screen counts on weekend charts). Anyone using the site regularly complained about a frequent message that the site was “being updated” and to “check back soon.”  We lived with it.”

 

https://www.seancast.com/movies/boxofficemojo-redesign-2019/

 

Is there anything necessarily wrong with 17 year old code? I don't really know anything about coding or website development, so maybe it's not great, but from a normie POV, it doesn't sound like a big deal.

Edited October 27, 2019 by lab276

[DeeCee]

Internet protocols have gone through several iterations since then so I assume at some point stability issues arise. Which is exactly what we’ve seen. 

[JB33]

7 minutes ago, lab276 said:

 

Is there anything necessarily wrong with 17 year old code? I don't really know anything about coding or website development, so maybe it's not great, but from a normie POV, it doesn't sound like a big deal.

I read somewhere one of the main issues with the dated software was security.

[redfirebird2008]

9 hours ago, Plain Old Tele said:

I’m on mobile, so maybe it’s not the same, but when I clicked TD (far left column) it sorted correctly. 

 

Yes, that TD column works. But the sorting is screwed for columns on the right, at least on a day like right now with estimates instead of actuals. The "Daily" column sorts from smallest to largest, even when you try to do the opposite.

 

I stumbled on this earlier Saturday because their default view for that page was using the "Daily" column. It said it was sorting from largest to smallest, but nope. It was sorting from the other direction. Got there from the home page and the numbers were jacked up by default. Pretty dumb. 

[lab276]

1 hour ago, DeeCee said:

Internet protocols have gone through several iterations since then so I assume at some point stability issues arise. Which is exactly what we’ve seen. 

 

1 hour ago, JB33 said:

I read somewhere one of the main issues with the dated software was security.

 

 

What do youse make of sites like Box Office Guru or InsideKino then, which look pretty dated too now, but are still functional? They aren't as complex as BOM was though tbf.

 

http://www.insidekino.de/

http://www.boxofficeguru.com/

Edited October 27, 2019 by lab276

[Water Bottle]

1 hour ago, lab276 said:

 

Is there anything necessarily wrong with 17 year old code? I don't really know anything about coding or website development, so maybe it's not great, but from a normie POV, it doesn't sound like a big deal.

The older the code is the more difficult it is to make updates to the project especially when you have different coders come and go through the history of the site. The people who originally made BOM haven't been there for years. It's part of the reason IMDB shut down the Box Office Mojo forums/derby (the old code led to a crash of their log-in system which IMDB never fixed due to the age). It's less of a problem if you have a big staff who can make sweeping changes to the site or the same coder but Box Office Mojo had neither. Keep in mind Box Office Mojo isn't pure HTML: it's partly an online database which meant lots of complex code.

 

2 minutes ago, lab276 said:

 

 

 

What do youse make of sites like Box Office Guru or InsideKino then, which look pretty dated too now, but are still functional? They aren't as complex as BOM was though tbf.

 

http://www.insidekino.de/

http://www.boxofficeguru.com/

 

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Box Office Guru is just HTML (which is super basic code) and maybe some basic CSS (which is just a visual template for the website). It's functional, sure, but Gitesh isn't doing anything complex with his website. Even though he has a "database" it's really just him editing the webpage with the data rather than an actual web database. But like I could easily jump in and take over and not miss a beat with his coding-and I only know very basic HTML/CSS! I couldn't work on BOM's code (or even BOT's code which is also immensely complicated!)

 

It is very good for BOM to get an update to it's code (and look) but it's bad that they changed the nature of the website in the process. If we could have the old BOM features back but with new code? Would have been ideal.

[lab276]

Thanks for the information. It makes sense then that BOM was more unstable if older code can't be maintained or updated easily. To be honest, I had issues with certain pages too, though I found some workarounds (namely, just changing the url manually, rather than using the actual feature on BOM) and just didn't think about it otherwise. I suppose I can give the code refresh a pass then.

[PNF2187]

6 hours ago, JB33 said:

Have to laugh. Under the Changes tab in the calendar section they list Raya and the Last Dragon as having moved from June 19, 2020 to November 25, 2020. Umm, wasn't Raya always scheduled for November 25, due to the fact that Soul is scheduled for June 19?

That is quite strange. On the note of other Disney Animation related box office blunders on the site, Moana's Finland, Columbia, New Zealand and Japan are counted twice now due to those also being a re-release on top of them already counted in the original overseas total, so the gross ends up being $690,845,539, which is the actual gross plus the duplicated grosses from those four markets ($643,331,111 + $47,514,428)

[HeadShot]

The-Numbers needs to add some extra stuff and they will snap Boxofficemojo out of existence. 

[Stas]

Box office tab of film on IMDb Pro:

 

Spoiler

 

Daily, weekend and weekly charts for domestic box office, weekend charts for major foreign markets and overall gross for some minor foreign markets. No links to all-time charts, breakdowns and showdowns. The charts themselves look ok I guess.

 

Genres, brands and franchises are messy now. Genres charts include keywords:

 

Spoiler

 

Brands include studios, famous collaborations (Burton+Depp). And charts limited to 200 top films in Pro version too.

 

Archive.org is not available at the moment, so can't check specific data correctness.

 

I still don't see which depth BO data would interest usual IMDb Pro users. I don't see which IMDb Pro features  would interest me. I guess three subscription plans would be optimal: usual IMDb Pro stuff + BO data, just IMDB Pro stuff, just BO data. Of course, they have to clean up the mess with genre and brand charts, link box office tab of the movies to all record charts and showdowns. That at least would return the lost value of free old BOM.

 

Release schedule is better now. Would be nice to include streaming / BD / DVD release dates for movies and TV shows, that's definitely a payable feature.

[MOVIEGUY]

I just realized I've been checking BOM every Sunday morning for years and this is the first time it's changed. Boy I really hates it.