One of the key advantages of online social media is the ability to build communities around niche interests. Movies now achieve cult-status much faster, and to a deeper degree, among consumers as a result. In response, companies such as AMC can seize the opportunity to forge new business models by listening to social traffic, crunching the data and moving beyond merely exhibiting movies to staging unique movie events.
What would this mean for movie theaters, particularly independent films?
It could be a shot in the arm for independent film; Studios would increase their platform, price points and range of film product; Theaters could off-set falling attendance for major releases by attracting sizable, calculated and quantifiable niche audiences (derived from rich online data) -- and consumers could ultimately refresh the community experience of movie-going by supporting theaters that play an active and relevant role in their social network lives.
I personally love going to the movies... but... I also love Facebook. I'm curious as to what everyone's thoughts are about watching movies on Facebook? And, more importantly, what would this mean for the empire that has become Facebook?
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of watching movies or TV shows on my computer. I would much rather watch on a bigger screen where the quality is better and there are no loading times. But how often as college students do we actually take the time to go to the theaters or rent movies? It's a pretty rare occasion especially when that same movie can be streamed right to our computers. Many of my friends already watch rented or purchased movies from iTunes or illegally uploaded ones on the web so the concept of watching movies on a computer is already salient among our generation. Perhaps watching movies on Facebook would be easier, but I think one of the only ways to entice users to do so is to lower the prices in comparison to iTunes or similar sites. While this may create a loss of revenue in the short term, the site has billions of users that would most likely switch to Facebook for their movies, ultimately raising profits in the long run.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that when Facebook initially began, the site could be accessed for free and there were no advertisements. But recently, the company started incorporating ads on the right hand side of each page when the owners realized how lucrative the site could be. And now, Facebook is starting to capitalize on its users as well, who will have to pay to watch movies on the site. This transition from a completely free site to something that now incorporates consumers money makes me wonder about the future of Facebook. Will the company start charging for other apps? Will users have to pay a monthly fee to use the site? Could Facebook become a site driven completely by money in the future? To me, it would seem that goes against Zuckerberg's initial vision for the site. He created the site as a free domain for users and is always portrayed as uninterested in money, despite being one of the richest people in the world. I'm curious to see how users will react to this change on Facebook and if they will embrace it or not.