Thanks to Fandango, You Can Now Buy Movie Tickets Straight From Facebook
Remember when the easiest way to look up cinema showtimes was to spend 10 agonising minutes on the phone listening to a pre-recorded voice listing them all? Failing that, your only other options were to look through teletext (there's a nostalgia blast for you) or actually drive to the cinema and just kind of hope for the best.
I bring this up because we seem to take for granted just how easy it is now. Showtimes are easy to pull up, and you can be all booked and good to go in a matter of minutes. You can even do it on a watch, think about that for a second.
The Apple watch deal was orchestrated through a partnership between Apple and ticket selling platform Fandango, and now they've stepped into the ring again to change the box office game in a somewhat less advanced, but perhaps even more significant way.
In this case, they've teamed up with Facebook to allow users to buy tickets directly from a film's page on the platform. From this weekend, the service will be available in the US for a handful of current releases, including The Magnificent Seven (yeah, that's been remade, I didn't notice either), Storks and Kevin Hart: What Now?
It's a simple mechanism, you just direct your way onto the film's fan page, and you'll find a big blue button saying 'Buy Tickets' hovering at the top. Click it, and you'll be shown a list of local showtimes and basically run through the entire process all the way to the checkout, provided you're on the mobile app. If you're on desktop, you'll just get redirected straight to Fandango's website.
The idea is to make buying movie tickets easier for younger audiences, as evidenced by the fact that one of the project analysts actually used the term "first-world problem" when the New York Times asked her about it. Similarly, Fandango have brought out services for Snapchat and iMessage which do the same job, allowing people to buy tickets without ever having to leave the service they were using when the idea struck.
As it is, the service is still very limited, especially geographically, but Fandango plan to expand it as soon as they can. The only issue with that is that Fandango is an American-only service, and a similar service which can cater to a more global audience might push them down the ladder.
Callum is a film school graduate who is now making a name for himself as a journalist and content writer. His vices include flat whites and 90s hip-hop. Follow him @Songbird_Callum
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Thanks to Fandango, You Can Now Buy Movie Tickets Straight From Facebook
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Rating:
Reviewed by Unknown
on
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Rating:
Unknown
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