Movie Trailers Go Social with MoviePal

Online incubator YouWeb has just launched the iPhone app MoviePal. And it will change the way you watch movies—well, movie trailers.

Cue Lights

So, you’re in a theater. You settle in your chair, establish the perfectly triangulated position between you, the buttered popcorn, and your soda. The lights dim—and a barrage of upcoming trailers are flashed on the screen. Admittedly, a few of the trailers will be stinkers (maybe not the actual movie, but that’s a whole other discussion).

There will be a couple, however, that will make you turn to your girlfriend or best friend (or the stranger sitting next to you, admit it) and say, “Wow, that looks amazing.” Then, the minute you walk out the theatre and try to remember the trailers so that you can tell a friend, you’re like, “What was that film? I remember there was a dog. And it was really funny.”

But you can’t remember the title, the actors, perhaps even your own name at this point. It’s like that awkward moment at a party where you are introduced to someone and a second later you are left searching the tendrils of your memory for the girl’s name.

Enter MoviePal

MoviePal takes the work out of sharing your movie tips with friends with a simple, full-featured service. When a trailer comes on, you just tap a button and the app will analyze the sound and identify the trailer (i.e., the movie). It will then automatically store that information for you—all at the touch of a finger. If this sounds familiar, it is. Shazam has a similar application that allows you to identify music anywhere you hear it.

So now the movie trailer is there for you to use in a variety of ways. From within the app, you can pass the trailer along to your friends. The app can also send you a notification when the movie is playing at a theater near you.

Another cool MoviePal feature is the ability to schedule movie dates with friends. And what if you just want to find trailers the old fashioned way? Well, you can—by searching through its database, which currently lists over 500 titles.

One really big plus is that none of your friends need to have the app. In fact, none of them even need to have an iPhone or any other iOS device. MoviePal allows you to quickly send the trailer using established channels such as text messaging and email. Facebook and Twitter are also supported.

The New Consumer

Increasingly, a new type of consumer is emerging, consumers who want what Peter Relan—brother of MoviePal co-founder Rohan—calls the “dual screen” experience. This type of interaction is gaining widespread appeal in sports and politics. People seem to love the ability to pick up their smartphone or tablet and pull up stats on players while they watch a football game, for example. What this app does is take that experience and apply it to entertainment.

YouWeb is best known as the outfit that created OpenFeint. That start-up was famously bought for 104 million by the Japanese social-networking service GREE. OpenFeint is currently used by over 5,000 games and is said to reach an audience of 75 million. Shazam has recently extended its service to movies, and the free app MovieGoer is also a competitor in this emerging category.

Some might see this latest development as just another way of further dividing our already fragmented attention. Those who welcome this type of service, however, see it as method of integrating knowledge—even if that knowledge centers on a new Beethoven film (the Saint Bernard, not the composer, and they have made seven in the series—and counting).

MoviePal was released December 22nd and is available for free at the App Store.