Miramax Launches New Facebook App
by Richard Sharp
Miramax Films today announced the launch of a new Facebook app called Miramax eXperience that makes it easy for users to check out clips of Miramax movies and rent videos on demand through their existing Facebook account. There are currently 20 movies up on the website and it takes 30 Facebook Credits ($3) to watch a full-length movie for 30 days.
Users will eventually be able to rent and buy the entire catalog via Facebook.
According to a statement on the film company's blog, the new "App allows users to view Miramax films on multiple devices, including their PC, iPad or TV...using Facebook Credits and Facebook Connect to make it easier to use the service."
"Our goal with the Miramax App is to offer consumers a great user experience where they can watch movie clips and feature length films, play games and share the experience with their friends within the Facebook community. And in doing so, we aim to ultimately build our reach to 150 million+ Facebook friends within the next 18 months," said the Miramax release.
Miramax is starting off in Beta mode offering the movies in VOD, but their longer-term plans are far more ambitious.
"Our ultimate goal is to give consumers the opportunity to buy films and store them in their own cloud-based digital locker — to then access the content anywhere they want, across ALL devices. Yes, that’s right — any PC, smartphone, tablet or TV, whether at home, on the go, on vacation, etc."
Miramax eXperience is just one of several major moves the studio has taken recently to become a leader in the online entertainment space. Back in June they made their catalog available to Hulu Plus users for online viewing and in May, Miramax signed a distribution agreement with Netflix as well.
As we reported back in March, Facebook has also experimented with offering up "The Dark Knight" as an online rental alongside Warner Bros.