Warner Bros. tested the movie rental waters on Facebook, then Paramount joined the party late last month offering the Jackass films. Now, Miramax has launched a new Facebook app called Miramax eXperience, which takes things a step or two further.
The app is about more than just going to a movie’s fan page and renting the movie. It’s designed to let users watch movie clips, full-length movies, play games and share with friends.
Miramax CEO Michael Lang says on the Miramax Blog:
First thing is we listened to our friends at Facebook, and worked closely with them to develop the concept — many thanks to Sheryl Sandberg, Dan Rose and Joanna Shields to name a few. Importantly, we asked a lot of questions about what we could do to build a better experience for the Facebook community. The result is what is being launched today in beta. With it we aim to unite all things Miramax and provide a great user experience for friends of our movies and brand.
The Miramax eXperience integrates into user profiles and news feeds and will hopefully become a part of the fabric of many discussions. It was important to us that Facebook users could easily invite and interact with their friends, by leveraging the social graph via games and other features such as enabling friends to “like” movies. We are also excited that the App allows users to view Miramax films on multiple devices, including their PC, iPad or TV. And Miramax friends around the globe will not be left out as the App will be made available to Facebook users worldwide. Finally, we’re using Facebook Credits and Facebook Connect to make it easier to use the service.
The app launched with video-on-demand only, but the plan is to let users buy movies and store them in a digital locker.
Given the studio’s close worth with Facebook itself, we have to wonder if we’re going to start seeing other similar offerings from other studios, making Facebook a direct competitor with services like Netflix, Amazon, Google, Apple, etc. in the movie business.
The app is in beta, and Lang stresses that they will continue to iterate on the experience, while listening to feedback. You can check it out here.