Like to chat at the movies? Lycos site may be just for you
Some movie buffs can't resist talking back to the screen during their favorite films. That was the idea behind the cult-TV favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000, and now the same concept has come to the Internet, thanks to the search portal operator Lycos Inc. of Waltham.
The new Lycos Cinema site, which is being launched today, at cinema.lycos.com, offers hundreds of low-budget independent films for viewing free of charge.
But unlike other video sites, Lycos Cinema will also provide a built-in chat room feature that lets groups of movie buffs watch the same film simultaneously, no matter where they are.
Up to 10 friends can make a date to meet at the site and watch a film. All the video streams are synchronized so that each of them views the same scenes at the same time. And they can type messages to one another, ranging from friendly chit-chat to wry wisecracks about the film.
"For the most part, our competitors are focusing on how to make the video-on-demand paradigm better," said Lycos's chief operating officer, Brian Kalinowski . "They've done nothing to create community." The goal of Lycos Cinema, he said, "was to create community around peoples' desire to watch and interact around video content."
For now, members of the Lycos Cinema community will need pretty quirky tastes in movies. There are no films here from major Hollywood studios. Instead, the site features little-known cult films with titles like "Savage Lagoon" and "The Ritual."
Once in awhile, viewers will stumble across something they've heard of -- the original "Night of the Living Dead," for instance. But most of the videos at Lycos Cinema are the kind of cheaply made movies that were ridiculed on Mystery Science Theater.
Jamie Reihle, Lycos's director of product management, shrugs off concerns about the quality of the films. What matters, he said, is having a hangout for people who love oddball movies. "It's about the socialization around the content," he said.
Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, wasn't impressed with Reihle's rationale. After trying Lycos Cinema, Bernoff called it "a very interesting idea. But the content they're starting out with is pretty sad. It's some real third-tier kind of content. . . . If they had good stuff, it's a very, very interesting idea."
Another analyst, Michael Cai of Parks Associates in Dallas, said the Lycos Cinema technology was "really pretty cool," but he didn't see much future for Lycos Cinema as a general-interest site. Cai said the underlying technology could prove popular when applied to some existing Internet services, however.
For instance, Cai suggested that Lycos Cinema could be used as an icebreaker by online dating services.
"Instead of meeting up, you can watch a movie together," he said. Cai also suggested the system could be used in education. For example, users could respond to videos in order to improve their foreign-language skills.
Lycos thinks that the service can form the foundation for a large-scale online community, if it can get a larger, better library of videos. The company is negotiating with major film and TV producers for permission to post more popular fare. Kalinowski said Lycos will soon be able to run episodes of TV shows from the 1950s, '60s, and '70s.
The company is also considering adding a voice-chat feature, to let users speak directly to each another.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com. 