Disney Is First to Sell Movie Tickets on Facebook

Disney has quietly taken the next step in linking social networking and commerce: a new Facebook app allows users to buy tickets to Toy Story 3 without leaving the website. Disney's application isn't just the first such service embedded directly into Facebook—it also capitalizes on Facebook's social nature by encouraging your friends to buy as well, reports the New York Times. If the idea works, and early signs suggest it will, expect more movies to get the same treatment.

“The whole idea is that no friend gets left behind,” says the manager of Disney's social-media arm. Facebook gets no cut of ticket sales, but the app expands the site's overall utility. “What Disney is doing moves beyond just creating awareness to using the platform to acquire customers directly,” a Facebook exec said. “This is the first time that a movie studio has tried this, which we think makes a lot of sense because moviegoing is one of those activities that is inherently social.”

(More Disney stories.)