Virtual currencies were all the rage for about five minutes a couple of years ago, when people still thought flying around naked in Second Life was cool and were actively trading in that virtual world’s currency, called “Lindens”. That craze died out pretty quickly, though I guess people still trade gold on World of Warcraft, but now virtual currencies may be on the verge of making a comeback in a big way, thanks to Warner Bros. and Facebook.
If you’re one of those people addicted to Facebook games you probably know about “Facebook credits”, the all-encompassing website's virtual currency which no one really pays any attention to because there’s nothing really all that useful you can do with it. Most Facebook apps are free and the ones that aren’t will probably just destroy your life by forcing you to spend all your time farming non-existent radishes. But WB has just announced a new use for Facebook credits: Buying movies.
WB’s Home Entertainment division tells us that they’re launching a video on demand service through Facebook. You’ll be able to actually purchase or rent, and then watch their movies right on the social networking hub. They won’t be free, of course. Instead WB plans to charge rental fees using Facebook Credits as a currency. Facebook credits are purchased using real money so it’s basically the same thing as giving them your wallet but I guess it’s supposed to feel more Zuckerbergy that way.
So now there’s actually something useful you can do with your Facebook credits, I guess. Though I’m not entirely sure why anyone would want to watch video of any kind on Facebook, let alone an entire movie. It’s not like their player is particularly HD friendly. Warner Bros. makes no mention of any upgrades to the standard Facebook player or any sort of special video player to be used on their films. In a world where I have Netflix Instant Watch on my television, I’m not sure this is really a good move for consumers, I’d rather see WB make more of an effort to put their movies on a quality streaming service like Netflix or Hulu than this. Hopefully this doesn’t prevent them from pushing their movies out on better Instant Watch services where they belong.
To find out exactly how this works, you can try the whole thing out right now. They’re launching the new service using The Dark Knight as their flagship rental. In theory if you go here and give Warner Bros. those extra Facebook credits you have lying around, they’ll let you start watching The Dark Knight right now.
