Facebook Movies will be live within 12 months

I predict we’ll see Facebook Movies by early 2012 to compete directly with YouTube Movies.

Here’s why:

Facebooks main competitor, Google, is moving into the on-demand-movie space with its YouTube Movies service.  It’s a hot market right now.  But Google has always lacked the deep social network advantage Facebook has at its disposal.

A viewer watching a movie on YouTube Movies is likely to want to chat and discuss it on their Facebook wall.  Many Netflix users go to their Facebook walls after watching a great movie as it is.  But it’s clunky to go from YouTube movies to Facebook to discuss a movie, the systems aren’t integrated, the user experience is not seamless.  It’s a pain.

And where there’s pain there’s profit.

Now imagine if Facebook had an integrated movie on demand service.  You see a friend has watched a movie from their wall postings, they liked it.  You can click a link right there in the message and get taken straight to Facebook movies.  Facebook already has your Credit card details on file from your Farmville purchases, making it a simple 1-click operation to be watching the movie your friends are all talking about.  $2.99, easy money.

You watch it, you get to join in the chat.

You don’t and you miss the chance for social reputation gain.  The key driver for all Facebook behaviour.

Imagine the speed a good indie movie could spread using this method.

It would be unprecedented and it would be a game changer in the movie space.

And only Facebook could possibly pull it off.

Facebook will buy Netflix in 2012, or build it’s own movie on demand service from scratch.  Either way, Facebook Movies will become a reality sooner than you think.

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