Have you found yourself wishing for yet another site to start watching streaming movies from? Your wish has been grantedvia Facebook. The digital arm of Warner Bros. has announced that it's about to begin testing a new service that would offer certain movies for rentor even purchasethrough the movies' Facebook pages. The test begins with The Dark Knight, with more on the way.
Facebook users will be able to spend their Facebook Credits in order to stream the movie, with a standard rental costing 30 credits (or about $3). Once the purchase has been made, users have 48 hours to watch the film in the browser. Warner Bros. notes that users will be able to pause the movie and resume playing at a later time when they log back into Facebook, as well.
As for the "why," the movie studio simply says that Facebook is the place to be. "Making our films available through Facebook is a natural extension of our digital distribution efforts," Warner Bros. digital distribution president Thomas Gewecke said in a statement. "It gives consumers a simple, convenient way to access and enjoy our films through the worlds largest social network."
The concept of offering a popular movie to stream isn't exactly new, but Warner Bros. is right in saying that it's the natural evolution in online video. In a way, it's surprising that Facebook is only now being brought in as a viewing platformit has long been used as a place to market movies and generate hype, but the movie studios have been happy to let Apple, Amazon, or Netflix take care of the delivery.
Now, Warner Bros. is getting the ball rolling in delivering its movies directly to fansfans who have a built-in network of friends to share withso we won't be surprised to see other movie studios follow suit sooner than later.
