Amazon Lets You Watch Some Movies For Free – Hoping You’ll Buy More of Them
by
on September 16, 2008,
Amazon has finally made a decision to add some free movies to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the incredibly popular site it acquired some 10 years ago. Until today the database only featured various information about movies and TV shows but video content was only limited to clips and trailers which made the concept look very limited - movie database without movies is pretty strange, after all. This addition of full-length films and episodes of TV shows available to watch for free on IMDb website finally brings logic to the site.
The total number of videos added to the video section of the database is 6,000 of films and TV shows episodes. The content is drawn from partnership agreements with Hulu, CBS, Sony and some 500 indie filmmakers (with other indie filmmakers invited to upload their content as well).
Same as Hulu and other video streaming services in the game, IMDb will only open videos for viewing to US visitors only - so international users like me should not expect to finally receive a place where we can actually enjoy the content not available anywhere else because it won’t be available here either and we will always see the grayed “watch it” button. But I know that licensing along with difficulties to monetize international visitors will probably keep the situation as it is.
Amazon’s main line of business makes it obvious that these free videos will be used more as a promotional tool and not as a standalone version intended to make IMDb more of a destination site and make some money off advertising. It is quite obvious that this move is definitely not about monetizing some content that Amazon can provide for free (mostly because no one is willing to buy it, I believe) but about increasing sales of those very films and TV shows that are not available to watch for free on DVDs or via Amazon Video on demand service. Quite logical - lure consumers with something free and make them pay much more for the content they will be willing to buy.
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Another Croatian
John Jones
Svetlana Gladkova
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
It’s certainly a sensible move, but doesn’t add much to the video options out there. Would be great to see more innovation around the viewing platform - e.g. Lycos Cinema lets you socialize while watching movies and TV episodes, and others allow you to make and share video mash-ups.
Bill, it’s hard to expect any innovation in the video viewing experience when it is based on simple embeds from Hulu mostly. What’s more, I don’t think Amazon is actually the company we should expect any innovation in the online consumer experience field - we have Google and tons of startups for that.