For several months now TV shows like The Daily Show and South Park have boosted their fan bases and word-of-mouth cool factor by making archives of clips available online. Whereas before you would catch a clip on YouTube, only to have it taken down by the parent company, now you can catch authorized clips of pretty much anything, from the “Schweaty Balls” SNL sketch to Steve Carell’s old “Produce Pete” segments on The Daily Show.
It’s not exactly as simple to put movie clips online, but damned if Paramount isn’t going to try. Variety reports that Paramount is going to launch its own Facebook application, which will make thousands of clips from the studio’s film archives available to share among friends. Facebook applications, for the uninformed, are little programs embedded within the site, which you can use to do everything from quiz your friends on their movie knowledge to play Scrabble. Presumably users who sign up for the application will be sending clips from Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Transformers to their friends, who can they have the clips playing on their own Facebook pages.
The whole thing sounds confusing for anyone unfamiliar with Facebook, but regular users of the site probably realize this could be really powerful. Paramount will include a button at the end of each clip which will lead you to a site where you can buy the DVD—of course. When the clips might become really important though, is for marketing upcoming releases. Everyone is already passing the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull around the Internet to each other, but when you send your friend a clip from the movie—and they post it to their Facebook profile—who knows how many more people will see it? Paramount is gonna make you do their marketing work for them, and you’re gonna love it.
