https://www.developpez.com/actu/331027/La-nouvelle-application-MoviePass-utilisera-le-suivi-oculaire-pour-vous-forcer-a-regarder-des-publicites-la-diffusion-s-arretera-si-vous-detournez-le-regard-de-votre-ecran/MoviePass will track people's eyes through their phone's cameras to make sure they don't look away from ads. The company, which has been closed for the past two years, is returning with the ad-focused MoviePass 2.0 app slated to launch this summer. But unlike ads shown on other platforms, you will be forced to watch them, as they will only be shown when your eyes are looking at the screen. Stacy Spikes, co-founder and CEO of MoviePass, made it clear that they wanted to avoid people putting down their phones and avoiding ads.
MoviePass is an American company that has been around since 2011. However, it really took off in 2016 when it launched a program where users could pay a flat fee to see unlimited movies in the cinema. A lot of people saw a lot of cheap movies, and the system was never quite sustainable. It went into decline in 2019 and declared bankruptcy in 2020 after several attempts to keep it afloat failed. But the company is coming back strong and says it has found a way to make ad campaigns much more effective for advertisers through facial recognition and eye-tracking technology.
Stacy Spikes took over the reins of the company and announced the arrival of the MoviePass 2.0 application. He detailed his plan during a relaunch event on February 10. The new MoviePass is based on all the latest buzzwords in the tech industry: "Web3", "wallets" and "play-to-earn". Rather than paying a monthly subscription as was the case with the previous iteration of the application, this time around you will be able to earn virtual currency to spend on buying tickets on the MoviePass platform. You earn these tokens by watching ads, with your phone's camera making sure you're actually paying attention.
Indeed, MoviePass 2.0 would be based on PreShow, a technology developed by Spikes which was used to allow players to exchange advertising views for in-game currency. The way PreShow works is as follows: you have to actually watch the ad ; it determines if your attention is focused on your phone. After users finish watching the ad, they receive credits which can then be used to purchase tickets on the MoviePass platform. “The moment I look at it, it is read. But if I stop and pay no attention to it, it pauses the content,” Spikes said.
“We had an early version of this where you know what happened. People would put down their phones, walk away and not pay attention. Currently, 70% of video ads are invisible. It's a way for advertisers to get the impact they're looking for, but you also get the impact yourself,” he added. Spikes described a world where people could buy products advertised directly to them through the MoviePass 2.0 app and earn more credits for free movies.
Additionally, Spikes said MoviePass will open up part of the company to members' stock investments. By buying a large enough stake in the company, you get benefits including lifetime membership. This technology will be launched this summer. Only time will tell if people are willing to let their phones follow their eyes while they watch commercials so they can see Spider-Man for free. At the moment, it is also unknown how it will work for people who wear glasses or people with disabilities.
Some say it's safe to assume that the phone will need to be held against your face while the ad plays, rather than on a table away from you. Not all users will have the strength or dexterity to hold a phone to their face long enough for ads to play. Users with nystagmus may find the software unable to detect their rapid eye movements. Critics have compared Spikes' new app to "a terminally ill capitalist nightmare." But the CEO disagrees.
"It's a way to close the loop and make the system much more efficient," he said. It specifies that all of this will happen locally on the user's phone. “Part of the direction we're taking from a Web3 perspective is that it's happening only on your phone, only for you, and the credits that are earned are your credits that go into your virtual wallet that you can spend. So it's your own money,” he said. With this new model, MoviePass 2.0 will work with redeemable credits that will renew from month to month.
Subscribers will be able to use their credits to take a friend to the cinema, a markedly different approach to the single-user card system used previously and which could prove inconvenient for non-customers. Spikes appeared to ignore existing subscriptions launched by individual theater chains, suggesting instead that MoviePass 2.0 would offer more options and more flexibility than a single exhibitor could.
Recall that since the company closed in 2019, many cinemas have launched their own subscription models for power users, which will compete directly with MoviePass. The company will also have to convince these operators to engage, which they did not want to do in a pre-pandemic market.
