In The Future, You’ll Watch Movies With Twitter?

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Video on Demand isn’t just here to stay, it’s changing the way that movie studios make deals, according to industry experts taking part in a panel called “Digital by Design” at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Oh, and expect movies on Twitter shortly as well.

John Sloss, entertainment lawyer and founder of Cinetic Media, told the panel that this year’s Sundance Film Festival was all about VoD:

That’s the business that IFC and Magnolia are in where they can back-stop their purchases, knowing that they’ll get a VOD number on it, and they can offer a certain amount of money, and I would say 80% of the transactions that took place at Sundance this year were driven by that model.

Miramax CEO Mike Lang agreed that the model can work for smaller projects and indie companies, but suggested that a lack of universal format or “reasonable” pricing for content holds back wider success. Without availability “everywhere” and at a lower cost than current pricing, he says “I don’t see how as an industry we will ever really drive a digital purchase economy.”

Of course, not everyone’s attentions are focused on purchasing as such – like Paramount Digital Entertainment president Tom Lesinski, who’s thinking much more about the Facebook experiment that Warners are doing:

I think the social media sites as real destinations for video consumption. That technology will create even more opportunities for movie consumption in places you would have never guessed, it’s going to happen on places like Twitter. Wherever there is a large audience, Hollywood will try to get a movie in front of those people.

I admit, I thought movie rental on Facebook seemed like a stretch, but on Twitter? If it’s a terrible movie, that’s 140 characters of your life you’ll never get back.

More on TIME.com:

YouTube to Go Hollywood with new Video-On-Demand Service

Analysts: Pay $30 for Premium VoD Movie Rentals? No Way!

Warner Bros Releases Streaming Movie Rentals Through Facebook