Nate got me into the habit of thinking of my new ideas in terms of the Web site they’d inhabit. This one came to me when Karen and I were sitting down to watch an episode of something or other on the computer. We like to watch trailers for upcoming movies, especially those we’ve been anticipating.

Trouble is, it’s often hard to tell when new trailers are available for movies we’re actually interested in. Trailer sites like Apple’s have lovely trailers, but they’re all one one page in a big list with no context provided. Is “Zodiac” a thriller, or a movie version of the Neal Stephenson book? Is “Good Luck Chuck” something we’d be interested in if we saw the trailer? Is that “Harry Potter” trailer new, or is it the same one we saw three months ago?

Trailer Day answers these by taking user submissions of new trailers that are available, then populating feeds for movies that other users have subscribed to. For instance, my feed might have Harry Potter 5, X-Men 4, and the science fiction category in it. If a new trailer for Harry Potter is released and a user submits it to Trailer Day, I’ll see it in my feed with a description of the movie, details of the trailer, and a link to where the trailer is.

Why would anyone care enough to submit new trailers? Initially it would be users helping each other out, with maybe some social bookmarking aspects or commentary on the trailer. Eventually, though, it would be a natural place for studios to post trailer announcements. The number of people signed up for a particular movie or genre could be shown, which would be useful as a gauge of interest in the film. For instance, if a studio trying to decide between making X-Men 4 and Superman Returns Again could use interest numbers from Trailer Day to help.