Warner Bros. announced it will offer movie rentals through Facebook for 30 credits, or $3 dollars each. To see it in action, visit the Dark Knight Facebook page:
After you click the “watch” button, Facebook asks if the Dark Knight app can access your profile, and then you’re prompted to rent the movie for 30 credits. You can watch the movie from the Dark Knight Facebook page as many times as you want for a 48-hour period.
Offering digital rentals/downloads via Facebook pages is potentially a powerful distribution path. The Dark Knight Facebook page, for example, has nearly 4 million fans. When the movie was offered for rental, Warner Bros. was able to promote the rental directly to the movie’s most die-hard fans. So far, Dark Knight is the only movie on Facebook, but Warner Bros. says more are on the way.
“Making our films available through Facebook is a natural extension of our digital distribution efforts,” said Thomas Gewecke, President of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. “It gives consumers a simple, convenient way to access and enjoy our films through the world’s largest social network.”
There’s no word if Warner Bros. plans to offer TV shows in the future, too, but the same approach could work with different pricing. As we’ve seen from experiments like the Facebook premiere of a Spongebob episode, capturing a fan base inside Facebook — without leaving it — can be very powerful.
What’s this mean for Netflix and Hulu? It’s too early to say, but if Facebook hits a critical mass of content — and figures out how to port it to tablets and TV — then things will get interesting.