By Tim Conneally, Betanews
Flixster, the social network for movie buffs, has taken strongly to the gadget, widget, and mobile app distribution channel. Following up on the success of its Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, and Orkut gadgets, it released a popular iPhone app at the end of summer 2008. Now the service has moved onto the Android platform and released a similar app.
Flixster's "Movies" app for iPhone was actually not developed by the company itself, but rather by a Carnegie Mellon sophomore Jeffrey Grossman, who released it to the iTunes App store on his own. Flixster hired Grossman as a consultant, bought his app, and re-branded it.
Just under a week ago, Flixster released v.1.1 of "Movies" for Android, letting users browse local movie showtimes, along with box office information and Rotten Tomatoes reviews about those titles currently playing. It also provides locations and phone numbers to theaters based upon the proximity to the user's location/ZIP code, and includes full-screen trailers of movies playing now, and information about weekly DVD releases.
The main benefit of this app (besides listing of thousands of movie showtimes, synopses, and user ratings) is that it is presented as a service which requires no sign-up. Several years ago, Flixster stirred up considerable controversy for aggressively promoting its site with spam, and for spamming new members' contact lists when they signed up.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009