Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 25, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
British Web 2.0 startup BlinkBox enables its users to experiment with film and television productions from well-known studios. The portal combines increasingly popular online videos with social networking and provides an alternative to YouTube. Although the platform is not another host for home videos, users’ personal messages can still be conveyed through short videos called “Blinks”.
Users have the opportunity to cut and edit films and TV series and integrate their own messages.
BlinkBox already has agreements with studios such as Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Discovery Networks and, most recently, FremantleMedia. This enables the startup to offer top films and successful television series from recent decades. As well as being able to watch, buy or rent the content, BlinkBox users are allowed to use the material to produce short films and trailers. Finished “Blinks” are embedded in users’ own homepages or sent by email and SMS. This is intended to attract more users to BlinkBox to use its download offerings costing just under ten pounds (around 12.80 euros) or rent films for around three pounds.
“We are constantly looking for new ways to interact with consumers of our programming. BlinkBox is an innovative solution that allows fans not only to download classic programming but also to have an influence on their favourite scenes,” Pete Kalhan, Head of Home Entertainment at FremantleMedia, tells the Guardian about the recently concluded deal with BlinkBox. The most popular material for “Blinks” at present comes from the extensive selection of children’s series and the American television production Baywatch. Video messages are also frequently made from classics such as The Matrix, The Big Lebowski or Superman Returns.
