Mark this day on your calendar: a major movie studio (Sony) has begun experimenting with some cool new technologies that make purchasing movies on iTunes more appealing to potential customers, instead of simply stomping their feet, threatening downloaders with lawsuits and being generally boring.
According to a report by Andrew Wallenstein at PaidContent tonight, Sony is experimenting with the following, when you buy one of three new movies on iTunes:
“A search button allows you to input a word, and any mention of it in the script will be retrieved along with a link to the exact moment in the movie in which the line was uttered. A ‘clip & share’ function lets the viewer take select scenes and post them to social networks. There’s also a playlist with songs from the film, which are linked to to places on iTunes where those songs can be purchased.”
According to Wallenstein, the features are unpromoted but included with purchased downloads for the Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (“put a shirt on!”) movie The Other Guys, and two movies starring neither Ferrell nor Wahlberg: Salt and Resident Evil: Afterlife.
I cannot imagine watching a Resident Evil movie, but perhaps one of my Facebook friends will shoot a clipping of the best part into my Newsfeed and change my mind.
May all old media industries find inspiration in these experimental new features and come up with ways to make their products exciting enough to purchase in a digital world filled with free content.
