Is Flixster's deal with WB bad for online critics and bloggers?
(CBS/What's Trending) - Flixster and Warner Bros. are proving that it's a small world after all when it comes to the movie business.
The social movie site and its ratings site Rotten Tomatoes were bought by the major motion picture production company today. AP reports that Warner Bros. is hoping to use Flixster's 25 million users a month and the 35 million mobile devices that the app is installed on to their advantage when the company releases UltraViolet, a cloud-based movie locker that would enable users to watch films they download on virtually any device without having to transfer the information.
"Driving the growth of digital ownership is a central, strategic focus for Warner Bros.," said Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, in a statement. "The acquisition of Flixster will allow us to advance that strategy and promote initiatives that will help grow digital ownership."
Here's my fear. Since Warner Bros. owns the social media network -- and therefore the reviews -- it be plausible for them to not want to aggregate negative reviews about their movies, therefore boosting up their ratings on Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes. I could also see a scenario where Warner Bros. films will have more information about them on Flixster than the rest of their competition.
This could lead to two things. One, we wouldn't get an accurate picture of the reviews from critics and bloggers. Two, bloggers, in an effort to get their name known, might be more likely to give Warner Bros. a better review so they can get featured on the site. That ruins the whole point of aggregated movie reviews and Rotten Tomatoes, which is supposed to be the place you go to see a balanced view of what professional critics and bloggers are saying about certain movies.
Because it can get so confusing, here's a recap to show you who's owned who:
- In 2004 IGN Entertainment bought Rotten Tomatoes for an independent sum - But, IGN Entertainment was bought by News Corp's Fox Interactive Media in September 5 - Then, IGN, as a part of News Corp, sold of Rotten Tomatoes to Flixster in January of 2010 - Warner Bros. then bought Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes on May 4, 2011 So, it seems that Rotten Tomatoes has already had contact with one major movie studio, Twentieth Century Fox. It didn't seem to affect their promoting one film over another during that time period. Flixster, although yelled at for their viral marketing practices, haven't been accused of pandering to one studio over another. It also seems that Time Warner Inc. and Viacom Inc.'s Paramount are on board with UtraViolet, so it won't just be Warner Bros. that has a stake in this system. Other major partnerships between studios, cable TV companies, electronics retailers and device makers have yet to be announced. However, at the time the technology was being developed Walt Disney Co. and Apple Inc. refused to join in. That means your iTunes purchases and Disney movie will not be included in the UltraViolet cloud locker, at least initially. Unfortunately, with UltraViolet still in the works, we can't tell if all our favorite Disney animated features are all of a sudden going to have 0 percent ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. For now, it seems that my fear of a biased online movie review and critic system is unfounded. The best we can do is wait for the system to roll out and watch to see if, for some reason, one company's films becomes higher rated than others. Then, we can start pointing fingers.