According to a report in the Hollywood Reporter Monday, Warner Home Video will shortly announce a plan to integrate Facebook friend networks with the BD-Live interactive community-screening features on its Blu-ray discs, starting with the Blu-ray release (scheduled for late July) of "Watchmen: Director's Cut." As a result of a new partnership between Warner and Facebook (which, according to the Hollywood reporter, involved "no money changing hands between the parties"), the existing BD-Live community-screening functionality will be expanded so that consumers can exchange comments with their Facebook friends, via Facebook "status updates," while watching Warner Home Video Blu-ray titles. "We want to do this partnership with Facebook because research has shown that consumers want to have social networking capabilities with BD-Live," Warner Home Video's VP of worldwide high-definition, Kris Brown, told the Hollywood Reporter. "Previously, those possibilities have been limited to your friends within BD-Live and the general BD-Live community." The Hollywood Reporter points out that while Warner's new partnership with Facebook will only allow consumers to invite their Facebook friends to participate in a virtual viewing party if they too have purchased one of the company's Blu-ray discs, the partnership should nevertheless "help spread the Blu-ray gospel, when those watching 'Watchmen' and other WHV movies offer live commentary" to their friends.
