Last month Facebook and Warner Bros. entered into a licensing agreement to stream “The Dark Knight” over the social network, available for rent with credits on the site, to the tune of about $3. Now more films have been added, including two “Harry Potter” films and recent blockbuster “Inception.”
And with that, Facebook is dipping into the digital media delivery service, but what does Facebook hope to gain here? Netflix is the king here, Hulu is hoping for action, and iTunes will always have the Apple ecosystem to summon users.
Facebook could be a powerful tool for digital media sales: more than films, but encompassing television, apps, and music. After all, consider the social aspect of sharing films, reviews, comments — imagine the ability to watch a film with friends across the site, commenting in real time. When a friend posts or links to media, instant delivery of that medium.
That’s a jump in logical progression. But it’s not to fanciful. And perhaps this is what Facebook is going with here, or perhaps not.
The point is Facebook is putting feelers out. It’s been constantly testing the potential of its expanses, from Facebook games/apps to the recent email/chat/message consolidations.
And now it’s looking at the media industry. Just like its looked at the Facebook phone. Hell, its even threatened to wade into Google’s territory with search.
Which brings us to Google. When Google started leveraging its dominance earlier in the past decade to branch into everything. Just as Google was the behemoth of the previously-unheralded search, Facebook is of social. The possibilities are limitless, and Facebook is exploring.