Hot or Not or Whatever Happened to Joy ?

There was a time we caught two movies a week, sometimes. We did not always need to know from the reviews beforehand if the movie was "worth watching" - it was more about deriving pleasure and a good time out of whatever we watched. Sometimes we suspended disbelief, sometimes we needed to carry empathy as we went in, sometimes we gave in to feeling spooked, and sometimes it was intensely and deeply intellectual.

It was not about 0 or 10 - all movies were certainly not reduced to a binary choice.

"We value our time more" - often heard argument in this context. Really? You'd just catch a movie in the time you spend reading the multitude of reviews and analyses of one. And if you value your time, you'll construct it in different entertaining surprising ways - not just in the mould of one dreary totally expected and conformist superlative.

The movie reviews (and of course those darned multiplex prices) have killed it. Bigtime.

All Kinds of Alerts!

I've been using Zook Alerts myself in the true tradition of eating your own dog food :) Just happened to visit the "My Alerts" page and here's what I got!

Headlines News Alert - 09:00 Everyday
Cricket Alert - When Occurs
Event Alert - Rock Bangalore - 18:00 Everyday
Weather Alert - Bangalore, India - 09:00 Everyday
Stock Alert - Satyamcomp - 11:00 Mon-fri
Stock Alert - Tatamotors - 11:00 Mon-fri
Deal Alert - Stationery Books Koramangala Bangalore - 19:00 Every FRI
Deal Alert - Sarjapur Road Bangalore - 19:00 Every FRI
Movie Alert - PVR Hindi Bangalore - 20:00 Every FRI
Deal Alert - Hsr Layout Bangalore - 19:00 Every FRI
Movie Alert - Pvr English Bangalore - 20:00 Every FRI
Stock Alert - Bsesn - 11:00 Mon-fri
Event Alert - Classical Music Concerts Bangalore - 18:00 Everyday
Event Alert - Drama Bangalore - 18:00 Everyday
Event Alert - Film Festival Bangalore - 18:00 Everyday

Of these, the News alerts, tho pretty generic, are a useful update of the world. The Movie updates are *sometimes* useful - totally depends on whether we're thinking in terms of going to catch a movie that weekend. The deal alerts have managed to get me to search a little more on occasion, and the stock alerts are what I probably read most religiously :)

Just signed up for HSR/Sarjapura Road deals alerts this morning - curious what it'll feel like to follow ALL deals in our area.

ZookAlerts: Achtung! Free! Deals, Movies, Events

We added a bunch of alerts - customized - precise alerts - on Zook.

• Olympics: This is medals, news updates, twice a day. Click this to set it straightaway!
  We're updating this once an hour.
  
• Deals: Once you've picked a specific deal to see more details - you can set alerts for similar deals.
  We try and figure from your query + the current deal what category, place to set the deal alert for - since obviously a flood of deals for anything and everything would be either too huge to send over 2-3 smses, or completely random and not too useful for you.
  [ A lot many deals courtesy Open2Save.in ]
  
• Movies: Get to know whats playing in your favourite theatre, for a specific language, in your city! We don't just send you the "top movies" across the whole city - cause traffic is a pain, innit ?
  Again, once you're in the details for a given movie, we'll set the appropriate alert for that language/theatre/city ourselves. No need to type in details.
  [ Movies data in part from BookMyShow.com ]
  
• Events: Quite like Movies - nail down an interesting event - and let us know if you'd like to be alerted about similar events as and when they happen.
  [ Event data from BuzzInTown.com ]

We have already been running Traffic and Weather alerts for a while. Keep tabs on your [un]favourite intersection in 4 cities in India, and prepare for the rain, if any.

BookMyShow Searches "Shortcut"

If you wanna just look for BookMyShow tickets - when you already know you want tickets - here's how:
http://www.zook.in/wap/search.jsp?query=bookmyshow+kuselan+bangalore
Then pick your show/theatre, and just hit "call".

Do let friends know about this - this is available across India - 30+ cities.

Find and book movie tickets through Zook/BookMyShow!

Movies showtimes have been a popular search on Zook - and quite a few people have expressed the need to be able to close the loop on this. We recently started working with BookMyShow for getting you movie showtimes across the country, and along with that comes their excellent service which lets you call them and book tickets for your preferred show - right there, right then! You can even have the tickets home-delivered.

BookMyShow is a rapidly growing service for Movie Ticketing. Their parent company BigTree is one of the biggest players in IT-enabling the industry! Network 18 is also a major investor in them. And above all, they're totally cool people to work with :)

With this we've added a majot action - in fact our first pan India one. Now you can do these on Zook:

• Reserve tables in Bangalore (Through HungryZone)
  
• Request callbacks for ordering Food in Bangalore (HungryZone, again)
• Book movie tickets for 600+ shows that BookMyShow services across 30+ cities!

BookMyShow will be adding a lot more cities soon, and we'll also add booking tickets through their WAP site as soon as that gets going!

Keep Zook.in - and get your tickets ANYwhere!

Edit: Oh yeah - please tell them you got there through Zook. Help our cause :)

Edit2: (I don't think BookMyShow - or anyone else - does PVR tickets right now - so it'll work for the others).