Facebook allows users to stream movies

We’ve got a bit of a theory in the office that Facebook will eventually become the internet, and in the past few days there’s been another step in this direction.

Warner Bros is to become the first Hollywood Studio to allow films to be streamed directly from Facebook.

Where Facebook credits were once used to buy pointless virtual gifts for friends’ birthdays and the like, Warner Bros reckon users will be much more likely to spend real money on Facebook if they can rent or buy movies via fan pages whilst staying fully connected to Facebook.

The first film available to stream through the social networking site is Christopher Nolan’s box office busting “The Dark Knight” which has already attracted over 4million ‘Likes’.

What’s interesting is that movie viewers will still have functionality of their Facebook page whilst they’re watching the film, enabling them to continue to interact with friends and post comments on the movie. This really is media consumption to the max. We’re already used to flicking between computer screens, smart phone screens and TVs, so why not just being them all together on Facebook?

Jennifer Aniston sex tape goes viral

There’s no sure fire, silver bullet formula to make a video go viral. You can get the top creatives and most scientific SEO specialists but it all comes down to whether people see the content, find it interesting and engaging and whether they feel the sudden urge to share it with their network of like minded friends.

Although there’s never any guarantee as to whether a video will go viral, releasing a video tagged ‘Jennifer Aniston Sex Tape’ is bound to generate some exciting stats.

This is exactly what Smartwater, a US brand of bottled water has done. Smartwater drafted in Jennifer Aniston to star in a video specifically made to go viral. (I’d love to know how much she got paid for it!) The video is a spoof of other videos which attract ridiculous amounts of views on Youtube and have that true ‘pass-on-ability’. Jennifer Aniston herself is one of the most searched for stars in the world. Add to this cute animals, dancing babies and double rainbow man and watch the views start flooding in.

The video has been met with mixed reactions due to the fact it’s piggybacking on the success of other videos and that it’s perhaps ‘trying a bit too hard’, but I have to say I love it. It made me laugh, I was completely hooked and watched the whole 2 minutes and 46 seconds. It’s definitely put Smartwater on my radar and made me want to pass on the video. Would it make me want to buy Smartwater? I’m not too sure. But I don’t think this is what the brand has set out to do.

When I watched the video last night it had around 2million hits. It’s now well over 4million and shows no signs of slowing.