Followmy.tv Keeps track of your current tv shows. Discover new tv shows, discuss and share them with your friends.

Current state of things

By Lemon - Jan 29, 2018

Hi Everyone,

I'm so amazed at this insane loyal userbase. It's so heartwarming to have built something that others continue to enjoy for years and years!

I would like to give everyone an update on the future of followmy.tv. In short, it's not going away, ever. This is my passion product and I will continue to keep it up in the air to the best of my capabilities.

As everyone knows by now, the current UI is very outdated and there haven't been any new features added in over 5 years. With the exception of the contribution system. The reason is that I have been working for the last 5 years on a new version. but due to the sheer size of this website and it's complex social business logic, it's a very big task to do as a single engineer.

To give you some history:

  • The current live production version is running the CakePHP 1.3 framework.
  • CakePHP 2.x was released and Jasper and I started an effort to migrate the website to 2.x.
  • Jasper also started working on a brand new front-end UI which was going to be amazing.
  • Then life happened, I started an immigration process to the United States and both Jasper and I kinda lost interest in TV Shows and generally building apps in our free time.
  • We both were working full time and eventually CakePHP 3.x came around. Again a new version we had to migrate this huge application to. sigh..
  • I finalized my move to the US and Jasper officially left the team. The core team went from 2 to 1.
  • Several years went on where I started focussing on personal health and other life events that were more important.

During all these years when I had some downtime to work on followmy.tv, it was mostly dedicated to maintaining data request, fixing issues. There was no time left in building the new version and the efforts kinda fizzled out. The whole tvrage.com outage was a disaster that almost destroyed followmy.tv.

As for the future, the good news is that I started moving the entire codebase again to a more modern language with a better database engine. I've also started work on a brand new front-end that uses React.JS. I'm also developing the API side-by-side the web app.

In a new effort to get the new version out. I decided to from now on, to no longer add new features to the current live followmy.tv version. I will also be more strict in moderating the new show addition request, only tv shows that are from the major networks will be considered.

I'm doing this so I will have more free time to actually build a better version of the website you all love so much. I want this to be a success, I want to build new cool features for all of you, I want to have the API in place so we can finally move into the mobile app space.

I work full time, so the only thing I ask from this community is to have patience :-). I'm working on a new version. I don't know yet when it will be launched, but when it does, it will be fantastic!

This is the best thing I've built in my life. And I'm especially thankful to all the members that consistently provide feedback, submit show suggestions, and contribute to all the show, episode pages. Followmy.tv wouldn't be what it is today without all of you!

Best, Sarah (Lemon)

Comments

cosmo
cosmo (Jan 30, 2018)

Thanks for the great work and update, Lemon!
As long as this version works, everything is fine :)

sherzyyy
sherzyyy (Jan 30, 2018)

Thankyou for this amazing site, been here since 2013.

I didn't knew just a single person was behind this site but i would suggest that you ask a few members to step up and i am sure a few with technical expertize will be willing to help.

On a personal note i have never had any issue with the interface of the site, everything works well. My only issue is that this site used to be great when we had Tvrage database but since Tvdb database this site has been kind-off messy.

That said this site still is and always has been the best of it's kind so keep up the good work going so THANKS AGAIN for all amazing work @Lemon !!

TylerLovekeeper
TylerLovekeeper (Jan 30, 2018)

I came over from trakt once they did their major overhaul a few years back. The UI was horrible, This site is minimalistic and great. Please don't go to crazy with a UI that will try to hard to be "modern". Keep up the hard work and love the site as is.

Patta
Patta (Jan 30, 2018)

This is such an amazing site and you're amazing for keeping it going!

TarenPlod
TarenPlod (Jan 29, 2018)

Thank you Lemon!!

FunkStar
FunkStar (Jan 29, 2018)

Hey @lemon thanks for the hard work! I was curious so I checked if I had my "confirm my account" e-mail and guess what... I did, 06-01-2011! What a ride, let's make it even a longer one.

edit: doh, you can see the join date in your profile...

diskape
diskape (Jan 29, 2018)

Keep it up, I love your work and I'm glad the site is not going anywhere.. huge relief :) Thank you!

gigajova
gigajova (Jan 29, 2018)

keep it , you are doing a great job.

nedius004
nedius004 (Jan 29, 2018)

Keep up the good work

sparklebiscuit
sparklebiscuit (Jan 29, 2018)

@JulienCambier that's precisely why I love this website. all the other websites are so heavy and filled with stuff I don't need. let my cpu breathe hahaha

And personally I don't need any new features, except maybe the ability to change our usernames ;)

kamaradu
kamaradu (Jan 29, 2018)

we are so thankful for all of your work!!

StevieG
StevieG (Jan 29, 2018)

Followmy.tv 4ever! :)

Qlczas
Qlczas (Jan 29, 2018)

is there anything I can help let me know. I know some basics html and done some coding in Java/C#. And also I am professional QA so maybe some beta testing and stuff. Let me know. Thanks for all your hard work :)

mfferreiro
mfferreiro (Jan 29, 2018)

Thank you SO MUCH for your work.

JulienCambier
JulienCambier (Jan 29, 2018)

I like this site because it's simple. I don't like all the fancy stuff on other websites. I just want the current platform with all my shows up to date

JulienCambier
JulienCambier (Jan 29, 2018)

If you want help you could make the code opensource, there are many devs on this website willing to help.

amertak
amertak (Jan 29, 2018)

Thanks for great app. Keep it up!

Btw I work as a frontend developer (React mainly) so If you want a little help just let me know. I'd be happy to help you out ;)

enea
enea (Jan 29, 2018)

Thanks for everything! I've been here for years and I'm definitely here to stay.

prince
prince (Jan 29, 2018)

I have been on this site for a few years now. I absolutely love it! Thanks!

lizzymaxia
lizzymaxia (Jan 29, 2018)

Thanks for all you do!

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