To facilitate the mobile movie tickets, Fandango is, of course, making use of QR codes, which are downloaded to your mobile device of choice and then scanned by the ticket-taker. While the service has been available for close to two years, Fandango’s most recent announcement discussed the expansion of the program with more Regal movie theaters participating in the process. The expanded service is rolling out just in time for the next installment of the Twilight “saga,” and considering the total amount of theaters showing the new Twilight movie, the two go hand-in-hand.

After reading one of the provided quotes from Fandango’s press release, it’s easy to think the new Twilight movie is the reason the service expanded to begin with. Clearly, the powers that be at Fandango wanted their expanded service to coincide with a major release, and with the new Twilight representing one of the biggest theatrical releases outside of the summer films, the timing of the announcement makes sense:

“Mobile Ticket will be in high demand tonight, helping ‘Twilight’ fans get into the movie theater faster than ever,” says Rick Butler, EVP and General Manager of Fandango, “and it promises to be one of our most popular conveniences at Regal’s theaters. Regal Entertainment Group has been an innovative partner since Fandango’s very beginnings in 2000, as the company regularly looks for new ways to enhance the moviegoing experience for its customers.”

Of course, if the mobile ticket service expansion had been delayed until next summer, you would need to replace Twilight with either the new Dark Knight or the new Spider-Man movie.

The press release also reveals the expanded mobile ticket service will work for all carriers, and that you don’t have to have a smart phone to access it. Furthermore, there will be no convenience fee attached to it.

Because the Regal movie theaters are the target for the expanded use of Fandango’s mobile movie ticket service, the Regal site has a list of all the theaters that will honor Fandango’s QR codes. Major cities like New York, LA and Chicago are on the list, as are cities like Nashville and Knoxville, Tennessee; Lexington, Kentucky; and Honolulu, Hawaii. Regal Cinemas in San Francisco, San Diego, Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle also support the expanded service as well.

With that in mind, do you see the way in which you purchase movie tickets changing, or does the fact that a QR code doesn’t produce a ticket stub you can keep make you shy away from mobile movie tickets? Let us know what you think.

The investigation found online shoppers are unknowingly directed to a membership program seller’s website that is separate from the online retailers site. Information about joining the membership program and its consequences, including the fact that the consumer is agreeing to transfer their credit or debit card information, is buried in the fine print and cluttered text.

Cuomo said his office has reached an agreement with online movie ticket retailer Fandango to end similar practices.

"This online scheme has impacted the finances and tried the patience of tens of millions of consumers nationwide. Well-known companies are tricking customers into accepting offers from third party vendors, which then siphon money from consumers’ accounts," said Attorney General Cuomo.

"I commend Fandango for doing the right thing by ending the practice of sharing consumers’ financial information with these discount club sellers. I expect the other businesses to follow Fandango’s lead and adopt these reforms to protect consumers who shop online."

Cuomo has sent subpoenas to 22 businesses that have deals with the three major companies that offer these discount programs: Webloyalty, Affinion/Trilegiant and Vertrue.

The subpoenas seek information about retailers’ practices of sharing consumers’ account information with membership program companies; their knowledge of any deceptive solicitations; and compensation from the membership companies. The merchants being investigated include: Barnes & Noble, Orbitz.com, Buy.com, Ticketmaster.com, MovieTickets.com, FTD.com, Shutterfly.com, 1-800Flowers.com, Avon.com, Budget, Staples.com, Priceline.com, GMAC Mortgage, Classmates.com, Travelocity, Vistaprint, Intelius, Hotwire.com, Expedia/Hotels.com, Columbia House, Pizza Hut and Gamestop/EB Games.

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 The Fandango Movies, Times & Tickets app allows users to find movies and showtimes, view trailers, locate theaters, view fan ratings and buy tickets.

Users can find movies playing in their local area by using Android’s GPS feature and connecting to Google Maps for driving directions, or they can browse films under "Opening This Week", "Top Box Office" and "Coming Soon" features.

Movie fans can also add theaters to a "Favorites" list for faster searching and purchase tickets for more than 16,000 movie screens. Users can sign into their Fandango account to purchase tickets with their credit card stored online or securely store their credit card to the device for faster purchasing.

As a limited time offer users who download or upgrade the Fandango Android app now through Oscar night, March 7, 2010, can purchase tickets with no service fee.
 

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Coverage of the Shop.org 2009 Annual Summit conference continues at WebProNews Videos.  Stay with WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.

Gary Wohlfeill, Moosejaw‘s creative director, started by explaining that for Moosejaw, ecommerce is "all about customer experience."  He tries to make things fun and interactive, and with regards to what companies should put on their mobile sites, suggested picking whatever works best on the traditional site.

Wohlfeill also stated, "We can’t not be in this space."

Neal Narayani, the senior manager of mobile and email marketing for Harrah’s Entertainment, then talked about identifying where mobile can serve a business need.  He stressed that it’s important to establish success criteria, and the next steps in the process are to measure and refine.

Finally, Ted Hong, Fandango‘s chief marketing officer, established his authority on the subject by pointing out that the percentage of Fandango’s mobile ticket sales has doubled since the launch of Fandango’s iPhone app.  Also, according to Nielsen, Fandango is among the top five M-commerce sites.

You might want to follow Hong’s advice to be careful when choosing your mobile allies, then.  Determine a roadmap, and if you are going to build a mobile app, take your time and build the product right.  It’s important that the app have staying power, since there are so many out there competing for consumers’ attention.

Don’t let these slightly stern tips make mobile sound too scary, though.  Hong stressed, "Mobile has fundamentally changed Fandango’s value proposition."

WebProNews Reporter/Anchor Abby Johnson contributed to this report.

"The film’s success proves that fans are ready for the summer and looking for an escape," says Fandango COO Rick Butler. "Moviegoers should certainly buy their tickets in advance before heading to the theater. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen may end up enjoying one of the top-selling opening weekdays in the history of our company."

Clearly, Butler is wanting moviegoers to use his company’s service, but that doesn’t make his point any less valid. Here are some astounding statistics Fandango released:

- Last night Fandango sold out more than 2,000 midnight and late night/early morning showtimes nationwide. (Keep in mind, this is Fandango-only for one late-night showtime)

- Fandango has been selling more than 8 Transformers tickets per second during peak periods, prior to opening day. That number could rise today.

- Transformers 2 currently represents 94% of all ticket sales on Fandango (as of 9:00 am PT today).

- Transformers 2 now ranks as Fandango’s biggest pre-sales title of the year to date.
 
- Transformers 2 is selling twice as many tickets as Iron Man sold on Fandango at the same point in that film’s sales cycle.

- Midnight showtimes of Transformers 2 were sold out across the country, from Abingdon, Maryland to Yuba City, CA. One theater in Las Vegas sold out as many as ten midnight showtimes.

- Theater owners are continually adding new showtimes throughout the day to accommodate the fan demand.

I’ve not seen the movie, but I’ve heard mixed reviews. This is reflected by current conversation on Twitter.

Either way, it’s pretty clear that the movie is going to make a ton of money. Transformers 2 is (unsurprisingly) a trending topic on Twitter. I am a little surprised to see only 3 mentions of it out of the top 100 (in the US) on Google Trends

Fandango had an all time high in traffic in July, receiving 8 million unique visitors according to Nielsen Net// Ratings. Month-over-month visitor traffic grew by 40 percent. The site had a 147 percent increase in ticket sales month-over-month, according to internal numbers.

May and July were Fandango’s two top ticket selling months and most highly trafficked months to date. May was the company’s best selling month to date, due in part to Spider-Man 3, which broke Fandango’s hourly and daily sales (selling over 10 tickets per second during peak periods) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which played a role in Fandango’s best-selling holiday weekend.

In July 2007 Fandango had its best selling month in company history surpassing its May record with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Live Free or Die hard, Transformers, The Simpsons Movie and Hairspray.

"Our growth in traffic, ticket sales and screens demonstrates that more and more moviegoers are seeing Fandango as the most convenient way to go to the movies," says Ted Hong, VP of marketing for Fandango.

"It shows that we are not only the premier movie ticketing site on the Web, but also a top online destination for fans to find comprehensive movie information, including exclusive film clips, trailers, photos, celebrity interviews, user reviews and more."

The top gaining property of the month was fast food chain Burger King that experienced a 774 percent increase to 4.2 million visitors due to tie-ins with the summer blockbuster The Simpsons Movie.

The summer movie season also drove traffic to movie ticket sites because of the releases of films including Transformers and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Traffic to ticket sites increased by 12 percent to 44.9 million visitors for the month. Moviefone gained 2 percent to 13.7 million visitors, while Fandango. com had a 62 percent increase to 10.2 million visitors and Movietickets.com saw a 107 percent increase to 6.7 million visitors.

As vacation season remained in full swing, travel related sites held on to their solid growth. The car rental category increased 15 percent to almost 7 million visitors making it the top-gaining category for July. Enterrpise.com led the category with 3.3 million visitors, a 41 percent increase which was trailed by Avis Budget group with close to 3 million visitors up 14 percent followed by Hertz with 1.9 million visitors up 22 percent.

Ground/cruise sites also saw solid gains for the month, reporting a 13 percent increase to 12 million visitors. Amtrack.com led the category with 2.5 million visitors, a 32 percent increase, followed by Vactionstogo.com with 2.4 million visitors, up 9 percent and Carnival Cruise Lines with 1.7 million visitors up 7 percent.

Job search sites also saw a jump in traffic by 11 percent to reach 17.2 million visitors for the month. The category was led by CareerBuilder.com Job Search with 7.9 million visitors, a 3 percent increase, followed by Monster.com with 5.5 million visitors up 6 percent and Yahoo HotJobs with 4.9 million visitors up 11 percent.

Comcast Does The Fandango

Fandango receives between 4 and 5 million unique visitors each month. The company was formed in 2000 by several of the top 10 theater franchises. A price tag for the Comcast acquisition has not been disclosed.

Fancast will launch in the summer and will be an entertainment site where users can search for television and movie content. Fancast users will be able to search for shows, movies, actors or watch video content on the site. The site will also provide information on where shows or movies are airing/playing and in what media format.

Fandango and Fancast will be managed by Comast Interactive Media (CIM). CIM sites will feature content from Fandango and will increase traffic for both web properties.

"Fandango is one of the strongest entertainment brands online as well as a dynamic, profitable business with a superb management team and rapidly growing advertising revenue," said Amy Banse, President of Comcast Interactive Media.

"Adding Fandango to Comcast Interactive Media and creating Fancast.com will enable us to leverage our combined assets to offer consumers an outstanding entertainment experience."

Fandango will continue to be run by CEO Chuck Davis who will work with CIM to expand the site across platforms and brands. Their headquarters will remain in Los Angles and the deal will close in the second quarter.

"Comcast will enable us to expand our reach with moviegoers, enhance our product, and grow Fandango into an even bigger brand and stronger business," said Chuck Davis, Chairman and CEO of Fandango