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Jinni.com is an online movie search and recommendation engine and social network. The site features an intelligent search and browse feature, which is based on ratings that the user has given to movies on the site. The site analyzes the plot, story, characters and actors in a movie to help it make recommendations that are personalized. Users can perform natural language searches of the site, or browse by categories. The top recommendations that come up in browse mode are based on the user's personalized preferences as well. You can click on a link to watch any of the movies in the database online via online movie sites, or add the movie to your Amazon shopping cart or Netflix queue. You can directly link Jinni.com to your Netflix account if you wish, making insertions into your Netflix queue automatic. The site does a very good job of recommending movies. The site makes it easy to share the user's recommendations with others, and users can have friends, follow other users, and have a profile on the site. Besides the intelligent search and browse features, the user can just ask for recommendations, which are generated by the Movie Genome Project, which is an artificial intelligence engine being developed by the site. The user can invite friends from their email address books or the major social networking sites to join the site. The site has a Twitter feed showing what is being discussed about the Jinni.com site on Twitter.

Tel Aviv, Israel-based Jinni.com was founded by Yosi Glick in January 2008. Mike Pohl is currently CEO of the site. New movies are added to the site's database on a continuous basis.

Competition to Jinni.com comes from sites such as Yahoo Movies and Movielens. Most of these sites use similar algorithms to Jinni in order to recommend movies in that they base the recommendations on previous ratings given to movies. However, neither site features the level of sophistication of the Jinni.com site nor has a feature like the Movie Genome Project.

The Jinni.com site has a somewhat uncluttered look and feel. Recommendations and search results are not shown in list form – they show a scene from the movie with the name of the movie overlaid on the picture. Moving the mouse over a movie brings up a pop up window with more information. The site is very responsive, in spite of the fact that it displays a lot of images. Searches are returned quickly and page loads are responsive as well. Navigation is intuitive, with a convenient side bar shown for browsing movies by category. There is no advertising displayed on the Jinni.com site.

Registration is not required to view the site, but is required for personalized recommendations and for using the social networking aspects of the site. The registration process asks for username, email address, password and country. Validation of the email address is required.

There is no premium membership offered to the Jinni.com site.

The Jinni.com site is recommended to anyone who would like to receive intelligent movie recommendations. The site offers a unique alternative to the competition in the Movie Genome Project, which is useful if the user needs a recommendation that requires little effort, yet is based on their personal preferences. The site is also an excellent social networking site populated by users who love movies.

• Movie search and recommendation engine
• Searches and recommendations are based on the user's past ratings of similar movies
• Movie Genome Project will provide a personalized list of recommendations without any input from the user (once they have rated a few movies on the site)
• Social networking aspects include friends, followers, following and sharing of links
• Users can click on a link in the recommendations to watch a movie online, buy it or rent it
• User's Netflix account can be integrated with the site

Jinni video

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