Warner Bros. announced Tuesday it will begin offering select movies through Facebook. In the past Warner has tried at least 4 or 5 different distribution channels and many of them fell through with little attention. At this point if you are looking for Warner Products you may turn to their website for free videos and television shows or to Hulu which distributes for a number of major studios.. you can also find pay services on Amazon and Netflix.. So why is Facebook even worth thinking about as a distribution channel?

The primary reason to distribute through Facebook is that they already have a large base of users. Offering pay services such as movies and tv shows is probably more in Facebook’s best interest as they try to find more and better ways to monetize their platform.

Rentals of major movies will cost Facebook users 30 credits or $3 for a 48 hour viewing window.

The added advantage of Facebook is to allow viewers to comment on movies as they watch however with everyone watching at different times you can imagine that reading comments for things that are just about to happen will ruin the experience the same way someone shouting things out in a crowded movie theater would…

Then again Facebook may allow distant family members and friends to watch a movie together you never know.

So is this a big deal?
Probably not as big as the Android Store offering a full line of Media to compete against the Apple Store but who knows.