Recently, Facebook announced that it would be offering movies for the first time, starting with The Dark Knight. Michael Learmonth argues that this change of distributing content through social media is a game changer.
It’s yet another distribution platform for the film and TV industry, much bigger (soon to hit 650 million users) and more global than any other, writes Learmonth. The entertainment industry is eager to cultivate a competitive market for content, rather than hand its business to one dominant player, as the music business did with iTunes.
Facebook is a service available on multiple platforms, which opens up new possibilities for distribution, and this might even open up possibilities for YouTube to sell and rent content. All the other studios are looking into this, because it’s a new platform and shares important information on how people consume this data.
Facebook is already the fastest-growing video site on the web. It’s No. 6 today (up from No. 8 a year ago), according to ComScore — ahead of Turner, Fox and Hulu — and everyone else is pretty much standing still, adds Learmonth. While that’s interesting, the really important stat is that Facebook accounts for one in eight of all minutes spent on the web (in the U.S.). Beware anyone who says a new media platform will “destroy” another. If that were true there would be no radio or network TV today. Facebook has shown no indication that it’s building another iTunes or Netflix to formally take on this market. It doesn’t have to: giving users yet another reason not to leave is enough.
Source: AdAge
