????你會在Facebook上看電影嗎？時代華納公司（Time Warner，《財富》的母公司）旗下的華納兄弟電影公司（Warner Brothers）很想知道這個問題的答案。該公司最近在該電影的Facebook影迷頁上推出了《黑暗騎士》（The Dark Knight）以供觀看。迄今，已有390萬影迷表示“喜歡”，而且，這些影迷及其他Facebook用戶只要花上30個Facebook信用幣（相當于3美元），就能租看該電影48小時。但是，華納兄弟也坦誠相告：目前僅在美國推出此項服務；只提供標清播放；用戶分享體驗僅限于在NewsFeed中發布該活動、點選“喜歡”按鈕以及分享到Twitter上。鑒于Facebook目前提供的諸類豐富特性，上述服務未免顯得過于簡單了。

????但是，華納兄弟此舉引人注目的并非是其不足之處，而是它對內容編程的未來的意義。最近，華納兄弟還嘗試過其他一些非常規傳播方式，在iPad、iPhone以及iPod上開發與《黑暗騎士》和《盜夢空間》（Inception）有關的應用程序。盡管這并非什么理想的解決方案：有誰會為了看部電影去下載一個基于蘋果操作系統（iOS）的應用？但此舉也明確地顯示出，該電影公司希望盡可能地開拓市場。迄今，其電影應用已經覆蓋全球35個市場，相形之下，iTune只覆蓋23個市場。借助Facebook，華納兄弟終有一天有可能覆蓋從約旦和塞內加爾到博茨瓦納和馬提尼克島的200多個國家的6億多用戶。同時，憑此舉，它也成為首家通過社交網絡放映電影的制片廠，用戶無需通往第三方網站的外部鏈接或者往返于社交網絡和第三方網站之間。

????乍聽之下，這一切不免有些奇怪。因為用戶在Facebook注冊時，他們腦子里想的是用它與朋友和熟人聯系，有時，這些人中還包括他們朝思暮想的理想約會對象。相反，觀賞電影很可能并不在他們的目標之列。畢竟，有Netflix等網站能提供更棒的專業服務。對吧？

????但是，如果你深入思考一下，就會覺得華納兄弟此舉頗有幾分道理。Facebook用戶花在該網站上的時間是：每天平均要花上55分鐘，每周6.5小時，每月1.2天。這么長的單個網站訪問時間，只有處理電子郵件的時間能與之相媲美。而且，隨著Facebook逐漸成熟，不斷推出更多的供用戶消磨時間的功能，這一時間還會進一步延長。鑒于此，內容提供商開始通過社交網站向用戶播放電影，而不是逼著Facebook用戶告別該網站，去訪問外部服務或者站點，那無疑是一大訪問壁壘。

????“在社交網絡上提供視頻租賃服務，讓位于不同地區的人們共享觀影感受，是個難得的機會。” Milyoni產品戰略副總裁大衛?瑞克羅夫特表示。《黑暗騎士》Facebook觀影和電子商務應用使用的就是Milyoni社交商務平臺。這類項目的開發通常只需三天時間，但開發《黑暗騎士》的相關應用卻花了30天時間。

????盡管已經邁出了堅實的第一步，用戶界面不僅簡潔而且反應迅速，但同時也引發了幾個棘手的問題。我堅信Facebook觀影最終會成為大勢所趨，如果事實果真如此，那就會涉及到進一步細化的問題。用戶是否必須登錄到特定影片的影迷頁面，才能觀賞想看的電影？他們又如何知曉，某部自己想看的新片已經可以在Facebook上觀看？

????隨著越來越多的電影制片廠提供電影內容，用于在Facebook上播放，建立內容播放中心就顯得至關重要，這樣不僅能在某個中心地點聚集并突出顯示內容，也能讓用戶及時獲得最新消息。當然，這樣的話，Facebook將在你的日常生活中占據更重要的位置。如果你是馬克?扎克伯格的話，這可是天大的好事。

????Would you watch movies on Facebook? That's what Warner Brothers, a division of Time Warner (parent company of Fortune), wants to know by offering up The Dark Knight for viewing on the movie's Facebook fan page. 3.9 million fans have already "Liked" it and they and other Facebook users can rent it for 48 hours for 30 Facebook Credits, the equivalent of $3. There are some caveats though: it's only available in the United States, only streams in Standard Definition, and sharing remains limited to posting the activity to the NewsFeed, "Liking," or Tweeting it. Pretty barebones at this point, considering the wealth of features Facebook currently offers.

????But the move is less notable for what it's lacking and more for what it means for content programming going forward. Recently, Warner Brothers also dabbled with other unorthodox distribution methods, by creating iPad, iPhone, and iPod apps specifically for The Dark Knight and Inception. Not an ideal solution -- who wants to download an iOS app for each and every movie? --but it does show that the studio wants to reach as many markets as possible. Its movie apps reach 35 worldwide markets, more than the 23 that iTunes covers. With Facebook, Warner Brothers has the potential to one day reach some 600 million users in more than 200 countries, from Jordan and Senegal to Botswana and Martinique. In doing so, it becomes the first studio to offer movie content within a social network. No outside links or shuttling to third-party web sites.

????It might all sound pretty strange at first. Because when users signed up for Facebook, they envisioned using it for connecting with friends and acquaintances, and in some cases, people they're dying to date. Watching movies probably didn't register. After all, there are better, dedicated services like Netflix to handle that, right?

????But the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. Facebook's userbase spends an average of 55 minutes a day, 6.5 hours a week, or 1.2 days a month on the site, a significant chunk of time only rivaled by email usage, and one that will grow even further as Facebook matures and introduces more time-sucking features. Rather than force Facebookers to leave the network to some external service or site, a huge barrier of entry in and of itself, content providers are bringing programming to where the users are.

????"It's a great opportunity to bring a shared viewing experience back to folks who have gotten geographically dispersed," says David Raycroft, VP of Product Strategy for Milyoni, the social commerce platform used for the Dark Knight-Facebook viewing and ecommerce app. Development of such projects can take as little as three days, though in this case, The Dark Knight app took 30 days to develop.

????While it's a solid first step -- the user interface is simple and responsive -- it also raises several thorny issues. Once the whole trend of Facebook movie streaming takes off, and I firmly believe it will eventually, there's the issue of fragmentation. Will users be forced to seek out movie fan pages to watch that particular flick? How will they know when a particular new movie becomes available for viewing?

????A content streaming hub will become vital as more studios bring content over to the social network, not only to aggregate and highlight content in one central location, but also to update users. Of course, in doing so, it brings Facebook one step closer to being even more integral to your daily life, which, if you're Mark Zuckerberg, is a good thing.