YouTube’s announcement started off early in the morning with a peculiar tweet from @youtube: “We’ve got a special film debuting on YouTube tonight at 9pm PT. Follow our tweets for cryptic clues throughout the day.”
“Cryptic clues” followed as promised, culminating in a tweet in the evening that revealingly stated only, “Who you gonna call?” and a link to a YouTube-hosted full-length and free version of the original “Ghostbusters”, the massively popular 1984 science-fiction comedy.
Actually, though the film is hosted on YouTube’s site, the actual player presenting the movie is an embedded Sony Crackle player, which makes sense since, according to the YouTube Blog, Sony and the number one video site on the Web are teaming up to present the blockbuster as a way of celebrating its 25th anniversary. Furthermore, it’s safe to assume that Sony hopes this revival of “Ghostbusters” nostalgia, on YouTube’s site for the next week, will garner some excitement for its current work on Ghostbusters 3.
Though seven days may seem like a short interval to come up with time to watch a full-length movie on the Web, especially since us Internet veterans expect our favorite videos to always be available 24/7, this might actually be a sign of what to expect from film companies and YouTube in the future.
There are a couple of things to consider here.
For some time now, the film industry has been suffering big losses at the box office. At the same time, despite its monumental popularity, YouTube, like other very popular Web sites, has yet to completely satisfy investors with a concrete plan for monetization.
Put these two well-known facts together, combined with the fact that the “Ghostbusters” video on YouTube contains about 7-8 unavoidable Honda ads (each runs about fifteen seconds in length and appear at regularly paced intervals), and it appears that we have a recipe that could make everybody happy. YouTube would continue to attract millions of users around the world by providing the best service for the uploading of amateur videos. It then funnels that immense user base to its movies section, where major Hollywood studios prop up their ad-infused videos.
It’s not full-proof, but it’s an idea. Until its implementation, I’m crossing the streams to watch “Ghostbusters.”
