GigaOM » rotten tomatoes

Warner Buys Flixster & Rotten Tomatoes, Plans VOD Service

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 04 May 2011 14:11:15 +0000

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced Wednesday morning that it is buying the social movie discovery and review sites Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes for an undisclosed amount.

The studio will keep Flixster as an independent entity, but it plans to extend the service beyond mere discovery: The news release states that Flixster will “enable digital content ownership and delivery across any connected digital device.”

Flixster could soon became the consumer face of Warner’s digital locker plans, dubbed “Digital Everywhere”, which the company announced last month. The idea is that consumers will be able to buy content and then play it on any device, streaming from the cloud. Digital Everywhere will be based on the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem’s UltraViolet DRM scheme.

One of the reasons that made Flixster appealing for Warner is its success on mobile platforms. Flixster’s iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows phone applications have been downloaded more than 35 million times. Warner undoubtedly wants to tap into that mobile user base to stream movies to connected devices.

The studio’s plans for Rotten Tomatoes seem less ambitious. The news release only states that the team of the movie review site will continue to work independently out of Los Angeles. Rotten Tomatoes was acquired by Flixster in early 2010 in a deal that gave News Corp. a minority stake in the combined company. AllThingsD reported earlier this year that Warner was in discussions to pay up to $90 million for Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes.

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Rotten Tomatoes Reviews and Ratings Now Available in iTunes

Darrell Etherington — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:25:04 +0000

The iTunes movie store just got a lot more usable thanks to a small but significant update that went live today. As of now, the iTunes movie store features Top Critics’ reviews and the Tomatometer rating score from Rotten Tomatoes prominently displayed above customer reviews on every movie page. It’s the only review source I really trust when deciding whether or not to see something, and now I don’t even have to leave iTunes to check it.

As an example of why this is such a handy thing to have, take Valentine’s Day, a movie well recognized as one of the great stinkers of the year so far. But if you check it out in iTunes, at least here in the Canadian store, the average rating is four stars. iTunes alone would’ve steered you wrong. The Tomatometer rates it 18 percent rotten, and the Top Critics all pan it. Saved from a bad purchase.

The Rotten Tomatoes features will also let you know when a movie is exceptionally good. The screenshot that accompanies this article shows the Rotten Tomatoes box for Office Space, a modern classic by Mike Judge that you really should see if you haven’t already, especially if you’ve spent any time working in a cookie cutter cubicle-farm type office. Note the “Certified Fresh” award icon next to the Tomatometer rating. This is an honor bestowed upon especially awesome films.

You can also click through to see the actual Rotten Tomatoes page for any movie (so long as it’s actually been rated on RT, of course), which will give you access to full-length reviews from users and critics, more information, and the ability to buy it in physical form or add it to your Netflix queue.

Kudos to Apple for introducing a small, simple change that has a significant positive effect on overall user experience. But will it encourage you to buy movies on iTunes?

Related TechUniversity Screencasts: iTunes 101 and Smart Playlists (subscription required)

UGC Buys Out the Critics: Flixster Acquires Rotten Tomatoes

Liz Gannes — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:57:12 +0000

UPDATED

In a bit of an unconventional deal, startup Flixster is acquiring Rotten Tomatoes, the authoritative online movie review aggregator, from News Corp. The acquisition gives News Corp., via its subsidiary IGN Entertainment, a minority stake in Flixster, which operates movie trivia and fan review applications on social networks and mobile devices.

The combined company will continue to operate separately branded properties for user-generated and professional movie reviews. Together, they have 30 million monthly uniques, 2.3 billion user reviews, 500,000 critic reviews, as well as movie information and social games, according to a press release.

The first reports of the deal came last month from Kara Swisher at BoomTown, who said at the time that News Corp. was considering buying Flixster. Update: Swisher points out that she later reported the deal would be a combined independent company, as was indeed the result.

Prior to the deal, Flixster had $7 million in funding from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Pinnacle Ventures and Reid Hoffman.

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Vid-Biz: Blockbuster, Rotten Tomatoes, Windows Media

Chris Albrecht — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:14:29 +0000

Coulda Been: Blockbuster Was Going to Get Into the Operator Biz; former exec explains how the movie rental chain was going to roll out video over DSL in partnership with Verizon. (All Things D) And while Blockbuster endures a far less glamorous fate, Redbox moves into Manhattan. Company installs two DVD rental kiosks in the largest U.S. market, one in the Walgreen’s at the Empire State Building, and one at One Times Square. (Variety)

Rotten Tomatoes Show Debuts Tonight; movie reviews and info show will run on Current. (Digits Blog)

Windows Media Center Adds Sports; launching today on Windows Vista, Microsoft has content from Fox Sports, CBSSports.com, and MSNBC, including recaps of March Madness. (CNET)

Joost Partners with Netlog; agreement with Europe’s leading social networking service will let Netlog’s audience watch Joost content. (TechCrunch)

Less Than 4 Percent of U.S. Homes Not Ready for DTV Switch; since mid-February, more than 500,000 homes have prepared for the June 12 transition. (Nielsen Wire)

Ustream and Skyfire Enter into Promo Agreement; live-streaming company to endorse the mobile browser; Skyfire will make Ustream a featured bookmark. (jkOnTheRun)

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Current Picks Rotten Tomatoes for TV Show

Chris Albrecht — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:56:01 +0000

Rotten Tomatoes and Current are partnering to create a new TV series based on the famous vegetable-centric movie review site, the two companies announced today.

The Rotten Tomatoes Show on Current (yikes, that’s really an… unimaginative title) will be a half-hour show aired weekly on Current TV and distributed on Current.com and RottenTomatoes.com. From the press release:

In addition to the latest movie news and information, each irreverent episode will feature crowd-sourced rants and best-of lists influenced by the viewers. “The Rotten Tomatoes Show on Current” will also include the famous Tomatometer, bringing Rotten Tomatoes’ unique metric based on aggregated critic ratings to TV for the very first time.

There aren’t many details about the show yet, such as when it will launch or exactly how much interactivity will be a part of the show (maybe live Twittering?). But this move is in keeping with Current’s shift to a cross-platform strategy that will roll out early next year.

In November, Current went through a round of layoffs as part of this strategic move and said it was launching channels that would have both a TV show and a web presence. The company is reportedly moving away from the shorter-form “pod” programming to more traditional half-hour shows.

Wonder how this one will rate.

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