• by Mark Walsh , November 13, 2006

Entertainment portal Lycos today unveiled a new service that enables users to chat and interact while watching films in a virtual screening room.

Offering mainly B-movies, with titles such as "Behind the Nine," "Born 2B Gangsta" and "Breakfast of Aliens," Lycos Cinema allows members to host screenings at scheduled times for up to 10 other people. Viewers can chat online during the movie, with their exchanges appearing in a box below the media player. As with other social networking sites, users who sign up for Lycos Cinema can create profiles with information about themselves, and create buddy lists.

Other social features allow users to view profiles of fellow audience members and gather in virtual lobbies to browse lists of available screenings and chat. The screening host operates a virtual remote control, with the ability to stop, pause, fast-forward or rewind a movie via the media player. For private screenings, hosts can also set up password-protected entry, allowing only invited guests to attend.

Lycos Cinema is starting with about 500 mostly low-budget, independent films--spanning genres including horror, action/adventure, comedy and sci-fi. The initial batch of movies is aimed at the youthful demographic of community sites in the Lycos network such as Angelfire.com and Tripod.com. Company executives say they are currently in negotiations with major studios and content providers to expand the catalog. Lycos Cinema films are available only for streaming and are protected by Microsoft's Windows Media Rights Manager DRM software.

The new movie service is Lycos' latest offering in its bid to create a Web 2.0 entertainment portal that eschews user-generated material in favor of professional content. "It's a much more do-able and sounder business plan than when you're trying to get marketers to advertise against user-generated content," said Jamie Riehle, director of product management at Lycos.

To that end, Lycos is offering pre- and post-roll ads during movies as well as standard display ads on the Cinema site. Electronic Arts, American Express, Pfizer and Columbia Pictures are among the advertisers already on board.

Online video company Broadband Enterprises is handling ad sales for the video inventory while Lycos oversees traditional ad sales for the site. Riehle pointed out that even if someone joins a movie already in progress, they will still have to view a pre-roll ad before watching the film.

Lycos Cinema follows the start of movie-related initiatives at other sites including Grouper, which last week began offering famous clips online from 100 movies controlled by parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment. Users have the option to buy the entire movie after watching the clips.

AOL also recently launched an online video store that sells movie downloads. Microsoft is also readying a digital video store for launch Nov. 22.

In the coming weeks, Lycos also plans to roll out Lycos TV, offering classic and more recent syndicated TV shows, and Lycos Video on Demand, allowing users to buy or rent a range of films from Hollywood blockbusters to niche titles. Lycos also intends to reorganize the site to centralize the video content in one place, said Riehle.