Facebook has plans to add movie rental services

A  web-based movie rental program may be making its way onto Facebook, the popular social media platform.  As if Facebook needed help getting traffic to their site, with over 600 million worldwide users, could this give Facebook the edge over all other social media sites? Now that’s something to tweet about…

According to an article (“Sony mulls plans”) on CNET News posted on March 9, Sony Pictures is contemplating a way to distribute their movies over the web – specifically on Facebook.  This information is being released on the heels of a similar announcement made by Sony’s competition, Warner Bros. Studios.

Warner Bros. announced on Monday (March 7) that movie rentals will begin being available on Facebook – starting with “The Dark Knight,” the Christopher Nolan “Batman” movie from 2008 starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger.  “The offer is among the first attempt by a major media company to test the social network’s potential as a distribution outlet.”

A Sony Pictures executive commented, “Our view is that Facebook is certainly a viable pool for people interested in media content.  If you can have fans do the marketing, that’s a great idea… we’re looking at things like that.”

The talk of renting movies through Facebook has brought up a big question: Could this pose a threat to other web-based rental companies, such as Netflix?

“The fact that Warner Bros. was the first to stick a toe into Facebook waters wasn’t an accident.  The studio is among the most aggressive of the big six to test and adopt new technologies.” Perhaps, Warner Bros. inching towards using Facebook was enough for the other film companies – 20^th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, and Universal – to start seriously considering it as a viable resource as well.

Excerpts and information come from articles from CNET News (http://news.cnet.com) – “Sony mulls plans similar to Facebook-Warner deal” (G. Sandoval, March 9, 2011).  CNET News: “computing and technology news service presents original stories and investigative reports in real-time.” CNET.com provides product reviews and prices, as well as software downloads. (www.cnet.com)