Crackle
Link: http://www.crackle.com/
Introduction
Crackle (formerly known as Grouper) is one of the ads-funded online movie streaming websites. It is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Although it is free to watch movies on Crackle, all streaming videos are interrupted with commercial advertisements, similar to watching a film on broadcast television.
Analysis
- # of free movies: around 200
200 is small compared to other websites. However, as you can see later, those movies are relatively newer and more popular. - Uniqueness: 60%
We define it as the percentage of movies not available as free on other sites. Because Crackle provides its content through a web syndication network, you can also find some of the movies on Crackle’s Youtube channel, etc. We still treat those movies as unique. - Vintage and quality distribution: see charts below
We use the rating on IMDb as a measure of quality, and the votes on IMDb as a measure of popularity. The result will differ from data on other sites like RottenTomatoes, but it still provides good evaluation of the whole collection.
Year distribution (before 2000):
Year distribution (after 2000):
Votes distribution:
Rating distribution (with votes > 50):
Summary
Crackle only provides a small number of movies. However, it has higher ratio of new and popular titles compared with other sites.
For example, there are 5 movies on Crackles each of which has more than 100,000 votes on IMDb while there are only 4 such free movies on Hulu (Note that Hulu has 2000 free movies in total). Also, most of the movies on Crackle are released after 1970 (> 98%).
Many of the popular movies on Crackle are only available in a short period of time (several popular movies will expire on 1/1/2013). Don’t forget to check its website regularly, so that you won’t miss any good movies.
Here is a list of some popular movies on Crackle:
Title | Year | IMDb Rating | IMDb Votes | Expire Dates |
The Fifth Element | 1997 | 7.6 | 205746 | 1/1/2013 |
21 | 2008 | 6.7 | 113482 | 1/1/2013 |
Step Brothers | 2008 | 6.7 | 113319 | 1/1/2013 |
Identity | 2003 | 7.3 | 103918 | |
Layer Cake | 2005 | 7.4 | 78720 | |
Legends of the Fall | 1994 | 7.3 | 65827 | 1/1/2013 |
Kung Fu Hustle | 2005 | 7.7 | 63603 | |
Unthinkable | 2010 | 7.1 | 45055 | |
Harry Brown | 2010 | 7.3 | 44395 | |
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story | 2007 | 6.7 | 40095 | 3/1/2013 |