Facebook has actually made social connections more entertaining, rendering even some of my most boring relatives, friends, co-workers, and casual acquaintances a bit more interesting.
Now that Netflix chairman and CEO Reed Hastings has joined Facebook’s board, I’m wondering what’s going to be down the road of my life on Facebook. Will I one day look up from my laptop and ask my wife to watch a movie or TV show on Facebook?
Clearly, as Facebook inches towards reaching 1 billion users sometime next year, it is looking for more and more ways to keep people logged in. Games are obvious time consumers and so is music. Movies and TV? Definitely. (Even if it means watching Green Lantern laying a big fat egg at the tills.)
As an additional revenue stream (which Facebook probably needs more than just traffic), perhaps it’ll lead to seamless social network TV/movie promotion that actually brings bigger bucks. That will definitely come in handy, if and when, Facebook goes public next year and needs to support its profitability profile.
On PC Magazine, the love-fest between Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and hastings seems pretty graphic:
“Reed is an entrepreneur and technologist who has led Netflix to transform the way people watch movies and TV,” Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, said in a statement. “He has built a culture of continuous rapid innovation, something we share and work hard to build every day.”
Hastings said Facebook has propelled a “fundamental change in how people connect with each other and share all kinds of content,” and said he will work with Zuckerberg and the board “to help Facebook take advantage of all the opportunities ahead.”
Netflix now has more than 23 million members and more people are switching to watching TV shows and movies on their computers and handheld devices.
