Damien Mulley

Staying on the movie theme for today. Congrats to Moviestar.ie who are apparently going into movie downloads as well as DVD distribution via post. Been thinking about Moviestar.ie a bit of late, mainly because they came along and offered some wonderful goodybag vouchers at the blog awards as well as 30! dvd players too. DVDs by post is a new enough concept in Ireland but it seems to be doing very well in the States, probably because of having so many armed postmen or something. I heard they shoot to kill if you try and rob them.

DVD rentals, a la NetFlix. So isn’t the core business of Moviestar.ie to keep people indoors? Are their main competitors the cinemas and the pubs? Possibly not the cinemas and maybe not the pub either. Are RTE and Sky competitors I wonder? Maybe every one of the above is a competitor and maybe an ally too.

None of my business, but…
What would I do with Moviestar.ie? Not that it’s any of my business but I’d definitely set up a group blog and ask some of the totally obsessive movie bloggers to come on board and blog every now and then about DVDs that are in the Moviestar catalog. There are gems in there, even for the movie fascists some of us are. A blog is good for generating a little interest and a good bit of Google rankings to draw people in. What else can be done though?

Complimentary to our lives
Well I think Moviestar.ie could compliment life with sets of DVDs. Christmas movies around .. Christmas. Romance movies around Valentine’s, the best of horror around Halloween. Getting me? Movie marathons. Box sets and weekend long marathons of TV shows are the norm now, so why not exploit it? Don’t send a single DVD but a whole set. What about tie-ins with cinemas and upcoming movies? An example? Well how about watching all of the existing Rambo movies before watching the latest in the cinema? Same for Rocky, Die Hard etc. etc. Sequels could be a great business. Birthday party DVD specials too for kids. Imagine having a personal shopper for movies or a bluffers guide to gangster movies, cowboy movies etc.?

Cross-promotions
DVDs and cinemas compliment each other in my view. Perhaps there could be tie-ins with the cinemas with cross-promotions for upcoming movies or maybe with the movie distributors themselves since there’s an existing relationship. It would pay for distributors to do something like this with Moviestar to boost an upcoming film. Sequel out, get Moviestar to promote the previous movies and do offers for people to watch them. Build some hype. Then there’s the offies. Get the beer, the chips and the Evil Dead movies. Or the superhero collection. Corona and a cowboy movie or two.

I love the idea of social objects and creating something that could gather people around to enjoy their time together. Whether it be to act as ambassadors or just community building.

Any other “none of our business, but” suggestions?

Ohmygodwhatadamnedamazinglookingtrailerandsosarcastic.

You’ve seen the trailer for Iron Man, right? No? Don’t. It might be even more fun when you see it if you don’t see any clips. But the trailers for it look really sweet. Robert Downey Jr. is so good even with facial hair that you want to pinch his cheeks.

Anyways, Movies.ie is a new site on the block in the entertainment space and Vincent that runs Q&A is one of the people behind it. Nice design. Nice features too. Have a looksee. I already sent Vincent my long list of wants. The carbon footprint of the printed off email will probably equate to a few trees. Their video podcast is on iTunes and YouTube and has Paul Byrne interviews famous and wantstobefamous people. 10,000 views for the latest one.

So yes, Movies.ie also organising an advance screening for Iron Man on April 30th and if you are a member of the site, you might get picked to come along. Details how here.

My favourite part of the site are the Movies.ie blogs (but you knew I’d say that) and hopefully they’ll get updated a bit more. I especially like Lenny Abrahamson’s blog (he the guy that directed Garage) and the blog post where he lays into the IFTAs and the shit organisation of them.

I’m giving the last of my free Business Blogging Training Sessions this Saturday at the Irish Computer Society in Dublin. (After that he charges – DM’s biz manager) A big thank you to the ICS for hosting this and providing all the computers for it. This weekend I shall be wearing something additional during my presentations. My shiny new “Obsessive” badge with thanks to Castle Tuppenceworth. I was beknighted or whatever that word for the thing that gives you the thing is. I was given it for my obsession with broadband in Ireland. That old gem. I’d like to thank Dialup “Noel” Dempsey and my bud Eamon Ryan as without them this wouldn’t have been possible. Oh god I’m getting emotional here now. Choking. Up.

Thanks to Fergal and Simon for this. Keep obsessing people. It gets to John Waters and Eoghan Harris. That’s enough isn’t it?