Will Facebook be your next video rental store?

The news that Facebook is moving into movie rentals through a deal with Warner Bros is surprising on many levels, now for me more so because it will predate the social networking giant's potential for expanding into areas like voice over IP and video conferencing.

Daily destination for hundreds of millions of people

“Facebook has become a daily destination for hundreds of millions of people,” said Thomas Gewecke, president of Warner Bros Digital Distribution. “Making our films available through Facebook is a natural extension of our digital distribution efforts. It gives consumers a simple, convenient way to access and enjoy our films through the world’s largest social network.”

This is a sure signal that Facebook is confident it has cemented its nearly 600m-strong audience and is ready to try bigger things. My immediate instinct is Facebook should be capitalising on its position as one of the world’s primary communications channels. Movies is one thing, however consider VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and video calling as Facebook’s straightway big thing.

Most people spend more time on Facebook than they realise or would admit to. We already share photos and videos, comment on things, manage groups, send instant messages, email, etc. Increasingly, we’re doing this on our mobile devices and as Facebook willingly knows, mobile is becoming the primary window for the network. So that’s why it is puzzling to me, for the time being, why Facebook is pushing a big-screen item like high-def movies previously truly taking advantage of its power as a communications mechanism.

Imagine if for a moment if Facebook added Skype-like features that allowed friends to talk to each other via video, or furthermore amazingly do low-cost calls via the network and via their mobile devices?

In October, Skype 5 was released, which allows voice calling between Facebook friends. The integration of Facebook in Skype is one thing, nevertheless envision seeing if some of your friends are online and connecting straight through to a video call or a low-cost voice call.

Facebook’s opportunities are endless on this score. The idea of Facebook as your local video store is taking shape, however I’m fixated on the idea of Facebook as your online communications provider. This would give Apple pause for thought with its FaceTime service and would really rival services like Google Talk.