Would you share your movie ticket purchases on Facebook?

By Sarah Sluis

It's easy to get all excited about something like a Facebook app that lets you buy tickets to Toy Story 3 and invite your friends to join you. But while this type of technology will be embraced by some consumers, privacy concerns will probably prevent it from catching on among a larger group of consumers.

Case in point? Fandango and Facebook tried to do this already. Three years ago.

Facebook has had no end of trouble with its ability to convince consumers to share their personal shopping information. An Internet search of "Fandango Facebook app" turns up a negative blog post as its third hit. When Facebook Connect first launched in 2007 (with brands such as Fandango), one friend of mine was particularly upset to find her Blockbuster rentals suddenly showing up in her Facebook feed, and had the usual problems trying to figure out how to block the information from appearing. People were so irate, they pretty much discontinued the program.

What must be maddening about this to marketers is that people are more than willing to say "Just saw Iron Man 2, it was awesome" in their status updates, or list it among their Favorite Movies, but aren't willing to have their ticket purchases posted. One of the problems of listing purchases, however, is that consumers can't modulate their responses. They can't say 'sorta good' or 'can't believe my significant other made me buy tickets to this flick,' but must simply accept the information being posted. It turns the feedback experience into one-note messaging, and that involves a level of evangelizing that just isn't cool to some people. For Toy Story 3, the message is 'No Friend Left Behind,' a play on 'No Toy Left Behind,' which appears in the movie. But for some reason, this makes me think of exactly the opposite--middle school cliques inviting all but one friend to see the movie, making for a painfully public exclusion.

If brands/movies keep trying, I think they'll eventually wear down the public's resolve and people will start talking more to their five hundred friends about what movie they saw last weekend. For now, the Toy Story 3 site will engage a select group of people who are willing to evangelize for the brand, as well as those Foursquare people that don't mind broadcasting their GPS coordinates everywhere (I'm in awe of them, really I am, and maybe I will join their ranks one day). It's exciting to see this kind of experimentation with brand tie-ins on Facebook...but for now, most people are waiting on the sidelines to see what happens.