Ask HN: "Tattlr": The End of the Annoying Moviegoer?
I had an awful experience at the movies this past weekend. Read about the full story and startup idea that came from it here: http://bit.ly/mxB7eD

On to my idea: What if there was a way to alert theater staff of disturbances without leaving your seat and missing the movie? You can’t make a phone call to the theater because that would further add to the disturbance of your neighbors. (It also may result in some retaliatory action by the culprits.) You can’t send a text message because I don’t know of any theater that has a number you can text that will instantly connect to their staff. In addition, trying to type out a text message in the middle of your movie takes time and the unending glow from your phone may disturb your neighbors. You’ll also miss the movie in the process. Whatever the solution is, it would have to be a simple i.e. 3-step process that lets staff know something is amiss in your auditorium.

This is what I came up with: a geolocation check-in app, similar to Foursquare, that automagically pulls down the information of the movie theater you’re attending, along with the seating chart for the actual auditorium you’ll be sitting in. Your only input would be entering the row # and seat # upon entering the auditorium. (This works even better for Arclight or AMC where you can choose your seats in advance upon payment.) Here’s how I envision it working:

Let’s say the people behind you are getting rowdy:

Step 1: Press the app icon on your smartphone to open the app.

Step 2: Select your issue from a short list of possible issues. Stuff like “Sound is off”, “Projector malfunction”, “Idiots on cell phone”.

Step 3 (Optional): A seating chart pops up in which you can select the actual seats where the disturbance is coming from, relative to your current position.

That’s it. The movie theater would receive this info on their end, possibly a complementary web app that they have running in the background at the concierge desk, and dispatch a staff member to check it out. This works for 5 key reasons:

1- You don’t miss any of the movie.

2- You’re not disturbing your neighbors with a phone call to the theater, or long text message with the glowing light from your phone, or getting up in the middle of the movie.

3- You wouldn’t have to waste time describing your current location, its already stored in the app thanks to your phone’s GPS and your seat input.

4- It’s not a social app so you wouldn’t have to worry about random people knowing your EXACT location. Only the theater would have access to your location.

5- You don’t risk getting confronted, shot or stabbed in retaliation. These inconsiderate degenerates will have no idea who was responsible for alerting staff.

I’ve affectionately titled this app: Tattlr (pronounced tatt-ler). I’ve conducted a fairly exhaustive search and haven’t been able to find anything like Tattlr. I’d love to get your input on this. Let me know if something like Tattlr exists already or, better yet, what the inherent drawbacks are. I can’t think of too many. Check that: I can’t think of any.

Feel free to reach out to me in the comment section of my blog (http://thegeoffreyhull.com) if you’re interested on working on Tattlr with me. Obviously we’ll need an app developer, but a biz dev person can be useful also. I’ll be busy with DinnerPlayer (http://dinnerplayer.com) so I have no problem playing a mere cursory role in Tattlr’s development. Hit me. -G