LOS ANGELES - Movie buzz is a heavily tilled field. Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes track film reviews. The Internet Movie Database operates a heat index. Boxoffice.com offers charts based on Twitter and Facebook chatter.
Add to that fray Fanticipation, a new movie buzz indicator from Fandango, the online ticket seller. This ranking of upcoming releases - based on a formula that includes social media data and advance ticket sales â€" will be part of a new weekly video series called “Weekend Ticket,†which arrives on Fandango.com on Thursday.
Fandango, owned by Comcast, already processes the bulk of online movie ticket sales in the United States, but people tend to leave Fandango.com soon after making their purchase. Fanticipation represents an attempt to make the site (and its related mobile platforms) more of a hub for movie fans, increasing ticket sales and selling more online ads in the process.
