Recently I read an article from U.S. today, called “Watching a movie at home? Grab your iPhone”
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-12-29-dvd-iphone-app-blu-ray_N.htm

This is about how Movie studio utilizes the new technology such as social media network and Blu-rays DVD to provide a service in which once your device and the DVD player is synchronized, the movie viewers can not only to use their iPhone as a remote controller but also to generate real time comments and share with their friends.

This new application may sounds trivial as it does not use any cutting edge technology. At the first glance it may even sounds useless because why would movie viewers using other devices when watch movie? But in reality, we do, or at least we would.

This is a behavior we might not be able to capture if we simply ask some home movie viewers to express their movie experience, however, hindsight, 2 facts make this new service suddenly so relevant. First, the advance of social media as a way to express opinion start to unleash the desire of human being of being connected. from Web 1.0 where people will be the customer for the information to the web 1.5 where people start to express their ideas on blog till Web 2.0 where everyone is connected with everyone, we are surrounded by user generated content which are more personalized and relevant to our life. The viral nature of social media can be largely explained by the fact that it hit on something deep. Second, if we divide the movie consumption into 2 segments: serious movie and casual movie. The 2nd category in which people watch movie at home in a very casual setting is expanding. Largely because the fast pace of the life which doesn’t allow people to commit few hours exclusively in theater, not mention the traffic back and forth. Also the advance of the movie rental service offered by company such as Netflix satisfies the rising need.

It’s genius idea to combine the movie experience and the desire for connectivity by providing this service. This insight is probably not something you will get if you do a focus group survey, the company really has to observe the customers’ behavior and preference and get behind to understand the motivation and incentive then comes up with this unarticulated needs.

But how far this service can go? I think it’s a good question, personally I am very optimistic. There are basically 3 customers in this business. First, the movie viewers. The benefit for movie viewers is tremendous, imagine the ability to make a movie experience personal by adding humus comments about the actors’ dress or a subtle line and instantly share with your friend in another city who will laugh so loud when he watch the movie. Also, imagine that the you can comment on a random item in a scene such as the necklace of the actress, and link to the places where you just bought similar jewelry , you friends happen to be interested in the same item, she can quickly click the links and shop online during the course of the movie. Movie is no longer a passive experience, instead, it’s integrated.
At the same time, the integrated experience will attract more movies viewers, sometimes simply because a friend sends you funny comments about a scene in one movie which you haven’t watched. So the second customer for this service, the movie studio will be happy too.

The third customer, the advertiser may already smell the opportunity inside this, by adding very relevant commercial in the movie experience, it become less intrusive, sometimes can be even appreciated. Imagine how many people would buy Nike +plus series running shoes online if they see their favorite characters joggling in central park in a sunny day? This integrated experience allows the advertiser to capture the instant urge before it wanes out.

The newly launched apple iPad would be an extra push for this service because iPad makes the home entrainment experience more integrated, imagine now you don’t even need a DVD and TV, everything is in one handheld device.