If you're a film buff, you might be happy to know that Facebook apps are available that will help you stay up-to-date on the industry, while giving you the option to tell all your friends what movies you love. Some of the apps are better than others, but one thing is certain: if you're a real movie fan, you need to add at least some of them to your profile.
Social film going
Blu-ray Collection Blu-ray Collection provides an extremely useful way to track and share your Blu-ray collection.
Once you find what you're looking for through the app's search field, you can add it to your listing. Those movies can then be viewed by other app users. The app lists over 1,000 films. And since you can rate your listings, you can see how much you liked a movie, compared to your friends.
Blu-ray Collection keeps all your movies in one place.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Flixster Movies Flixster Movies connects you with other movie fans to talk about your favorite films. The app also lets you update your Facebook status with the movies you want to see in theaters.
Flixster Movies is like having the full Flixster experience in Facebook. You can review films, take quizzes to test your knowledge, connect with other app users, and research films you're interested in. It's a full-featured product that works quite well.
Flixster Movies provides a full social movie experience.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)
A reviewing and recommendation company called Living Social, which makes the popular "Pick Your Five" app for Facebook (and other social networks), has acquired BuyYourFriendaDrink.com.
BuyYourFriendaDrink describes itself in a press release as an "automated sampling solution for the beer, wine and spirits industry," but don't let that fool you. It's really a way for you to remotely buy drinks for your friends when you lose bets to them.
You pay up, your friend gets a text-message or e-mail code that the bartender enters into the system, and your friend gets a drink. The company also offers gift cards and does sponsored "sampling" campaigns with beverage brands.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but we assume there was a toast involved.
LivingSocial, the parent site for six user review services including ReadingSocial, TuneSocial, and ReelSocial, is announcing two things today: First, a $5 million round of venture funding, which will be used to expand the business. And second, an interesting new strategic twist for the company: a destination Web site. LivingSocial has, to date, relied almost exclusively on its social-network apps and widgets for traffic, so this is a departure.
Enter a review on Facebook...
There's no doubt that Facebook and other social networks have served LivingSocial well: The company's services have 6.4 million users so far, who have posted over 8 million reviews. But building a business that's beholden to the social-network platforms does have its downsides.
Chief among them is discoverability. LivingSocial is building a database of reviews, and the potential user base for those reviews eclipses the social networks. Burying content inside social networks also doesn't do great things for search engine optimization. So all content now contributed to the services via social networks will also get presence on the LivingSocial destination sites, which Google and other search engines will be able to index more easily.
I expect more social-network app expansion plans that don't rely exclusively on the social nets. LivingSocial CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy said, "We think we'll be larger, more successful, and provide a better experience if we have both."
...and it will show up on other social networks, on LivingSocial's own destination site, and hopefully on Google, too.
It makes sense for LivingSocial since the service uses the social networks as interfaces into a parallel network of its own users and their content. When you review a product on a LivingSocial site, it's shared with all LivingSocial users, no matter what network they're on, as long as they've installed the app. (The service uses OpenSocial as its platform for distributing its interface to non-Facebook sites.)
But this plan makes sense for other services, too. Social-network platforms expose apps to a lot of users, but the open Web has its own benefits. Especially since data can transcend platform, the smart developer should plan to build apps for as many of them as possible.
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