DISNEY SELLING MOVIE TICKETS VIA FACEBOOK

The Walt Disney Co. has introduced a new Facebook application that allows users to buy movie tickets on the social networking site and alert friends to join them, the New York Times reported today (Wednesday). The application, called Disney Tickets Together, is currently tied into ticket sales of Toy Story 3, which opens on June 18. The Times reported that many people are using the Facebook application to buy tickets in groups — some as large as 80. Oliver Luckett, head of a Disney subsidiary that oversees the studio’s social-networking presence, told the Times: “The whole idea is that no friend gets left behind.” In addition, according to Facebook’s Dan Rose, who heads the site’s platform marketing unit, the application allows Disney to move beyond merely promoting its films to now “acquire customers directly. … which we think makes a lot of sense because moviegoing is one of those activities that is inherently social.”