A few blog posts back I wrote about how Warner Bros. was putting the The Dark Knight up for rental through Facebook. Well it looks like it must have been successful. By now you should be able to rent films such as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer?s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Inception, Life as We Know It and Yogi Bear. So it seems like a strong mix of movies to rent. Although they are still in the testing phases and the movies such as Harry Potter and Inception were put on this test because of what the President of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution says has a very popular and active Facebook fan page. Customers will have full control over the movie while watching it through their Facebook account and will have it for 48 hours from rental. Seeing as Warner is expanding on the test it The Dark Knight must have been successful for them to try some movies. Although it is interesting they said two franchises have strong followings on Facebook, which could lead me to believe they are going to see if they can do the rentals on movies that are just capitalizing on a strong Facebook following.
If you had an outage on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011 while trying to instantly stream your Netflix movies or TV shows well you should have received an email from Netflix apologizing for the downtime and not only that but also offering you a 3% discount on your monthly bill for the downtime. So check your email and click the link within the email within 7 days of receiving the email to earn your 3% credit. Although in the email Netflix doesn?t divulge why exactly it was down but sited that it was experiencing technical issues. To me honestly I am fine with an answer like that. Why you may ask? Well because they made good on the downtime. They issued everyone who had a problem a credit and that is how business like that should be done. It is no wonder Netflix has taken the rental world by storm, not only are they extremely convenient but they make good on mistakes and issues. I would love to see if my cable went down for a whole day they issue me a credit for it. It is just really nice to see that Netflix appreciates your business and you aren?t just an $8 a month number they collect.
When iTunes hit our PC?s everyone who had an Ipod was so happy to see a program that they could keep all of their music in one place to easily transfer to their iPod. This eventually evolved into applications and movies as well. Well no its Android?s turn for an app store, well sort of. Amazon has launched an Appstore with 3,800 applications for the Android. Tonight Amazon will be available online through amazon.com/appstore. Users of the android will also be able to download a version to their Android device. Amazons appstore will launch with some mobile heavy hitters being on the platform, including companies such as Gameloft, Handmark, and one of my personal favorites Glu Mobile. Though Apple is suing Amazon for trademark infringement and unfair competition over the name, who would have thought Apple would be afraid of a little competition.
The appstore is actually very small compared to the Android Marketplace and of course the iTunes market. Amazon is even making a splash with some exclusive content for Angry Birds. To drive more business Amazon will be offering a few things to drive it.
? First Amazon will offer one free application a day to help promotions.
? Amazon will offer a feature called Test Drive, which will allow a customer to try an app out before they buy it. The technology is using Amazon?s cloud services. Users will be able to open and use the application from within their computer browsers. The sim will last around 30 minutes at said point you will have to buy the product.
? Finally, Amazon will drive recommendations based on a user?s purchase history. So if someone purchases cook book and high-end utensils, Amazon will recommend a recipe application.
? Amazon will also have a one-click purchase for anyone who wants to keep a credit card on file.
So all in all Amazon is shaping up to be a true contender in the application market. We will just have to wait out and see what will happen with the lawsuit Apple has placed on Amazon and what will come of it if Apple does win.
It’s just been 24 hour but IE9 has hit the ground running and taken the internet by storm. Internet Explorer 9 has been downloaded over 2.35 million times in the first 24 hours since it’s release on Monday night. That is over 27 downloads every second or if you really growing. Although even though those numbers are nice to see, Firefox still has IE beat. Firefox version 3.5 was downloaded 5 million times in 24 hours and Firefox 3 in 08 was downloaded a massive 8 million times in one single day. But that number is a bit inflated if you figure that back in 08 there wasn’t many browser choices that were as secure as Firefox. Now with Google Chrome, Safari and of course the newest version of Firefox on the way this new Internet Explorer might actually be comparable to the likes of Chrome and Firefox. Below is a video of the IE9 launch event that can fill you in on what IE9 is all about!
One of the biggest mobile sensations is a game called Angry Birds. It was developed by a company named Rovio. Well they were looking for more money to make even more innovative and addictive type games. Well I think everyone was surprised to see they raised $42 million. The main investor is from Accel Partners and Atomico which was the venture fund that was started by Skype. The big reason for the investment is that Rovio wants to make a true franchise out of Angry Birds. As of right now the game has 40 million active users that are on multiple mobile platforms and that Rovio has sold over two million plush Angry Birds toys. So now they need to expand that maybe with a cartoon or something like that. While most of that investment will be going towards Angry Birds, who knows if they will be making another franchise to go along with it. Let hope all of this money doesn?t turn those Angry Birds into Happy Birds or else what would be the point of the game?
Remember when everyone had a myspace account and it was the cool thing to have? Then all of a sudden Facebook come to be and crushed myspace to oblivion. Then you have twitter which seems to be living in harmony with Facebook, although some of my friends feel more comfortable on Twitter then on facebook but still have a Facebook account. Me personally I didn?t jump on the Twitter bandwagon but I might start. Now the reason I brought up these social networking platforms is because one of them is starting to evolve. It may even evolve into a bigger enterprise then it already is. It has been announced that they are testing renting movies through Facebook. Today the Warner Bros. movie The Dark Knight will be on rental through Facebook. This is just a test says Warner Bros. and Facebook really has commented on anything specific about the whole rentals thing. Plus you have to question why they are testing it with a movie that is about three years old. Now granted it was an instant classic in my book but don?t you think Warner Bros. would have tried it with a movie that is just coming out to DVD to try and make a splash?
The one thing that seems to be brought up in all of this talk is that this could affect Netflix but I think it really won?t. Netflix is a subscription service and this Facebook rental thing is more of an ondemand type thing. Now maybe if this catches on it could affect digital rentals from place like itunes and Amazon but anyone saying this could affect Netflix I think is barking up the wrong tree. I have tons and tons of movies and TV shows at my disposal from Netflix for less than 10 bucks a month and that is hard to beat. Although I can?t blame Facebook for trying to do such a move, I mean Apple had $1.1 billion worth of virtual goods through Apple?s iTunes store last quarter. So maybe it is companies like that they should worry about.
