A couple of weeks ago Google had registered the domains GoogleMovieReviews.com and GoogleShowtime.com (along with the .net, .org & .info of these domains), and starts a long line of speculations regarding the purpose behind it.

Are standalone movie info sites being built to go head-to-head with AOL’s Moviefone? Will Google partner with other services or begin their own ticket service? What about Yahoo? Might online ticketing be another revenue stream for G? Will Google eventually go up against IAC’s Ticketmaster for a piece of the lucrative online ticketing market? When will Gogle and Yahoo begin placing local advertising on movie showtimes results pages? Ads for local resturants, bars, etc. would sure seem to make sense.

Is this really the reason? I don’t know. I tend to go with the notion that they had done it only to protect the domains and themselves from paying much higher prices in case these domains get snatched by someone else. I especially like this notion considering the fact that they are already movie showtimes as well as movie reviewes, and while some are already using this service, it would make no sense to make people switch to the new sites for the same info.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 18th, 2005 and is filed under Google. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.