One of the hotter media properties that Yahoo! has is its Movie section, which includes showtimes, reviews, and trailers. The only thing the site is missing is the ability to sell tickets and Yahoo! has fixed that with a new partnership with Fandango.

Fandango currently provides ticket purchasing for over 20,000 screens across the United States. The partnership covers Yahoo! Movie users on the web, mobile, and tablets.

Kenneth Fuchs, VP of the Yahoo! Media Network had this to say about the partnership:

Adding Fandango as our ticketing partner allows us to bring our 30 million users even more access to their favorite films. Fandango will enhance our current theater reach and provide a best in class online and mobile solution to movie ticketing.

This marriage makes complete sense since most users who are reading reviews or watching movie trailers are in a buy-mode, but weren’t presented with the option until now. For Fandango, Yahoo! could help them become the biggest movie ticket reseller online.

Fandango blew out recent milestones with a solid January and February thanks to new ticketing agreements with AMC and Regency Theaters, which added 3,000 screens to its network.

The ability to purchase tickets online has been seen as a major reason for recent record opening weekends, such as 21 Jumpstreet, which opened last Friday. It broke records for non-sequel movies rated R, and pre-sales and marketing had a lot to do with it.

I’m a big fan of simplistic design and when it comes to web apps, I want to know important things up front without having to click around a lot. If you’re a fan of minimalist web app design, and also a movie buff, this app might be exactly what you’re looking for.

WhatsOutt pulls in all of the latest movies that have hit theaters or are available for purchase on DVD and Blue-Ray. While the site could use a little bit of polish, I’ve found it to be quite helpful over the past week.

I’ve bookmarked the page as my default “I’m bored” alternative when there’s nothing to go out and do. I’m a big movie fan, so knowing what flicks are in the theater is important to me.

What’s out?

When there’s nothing left to do other than go to the theater for some popcorn and a (hopefully) mildly entertaining Hollywood movie, the question that you ask your friend or spouse is usually “What’s Out?”. This app lets you take a look two weeks in advance, and links you directly to Fandango for ticket purchases and Apple’s site for movie trailers.

Additionally, WhatsOutt will tell you what movies are available for purchase on DVD, Blue-Ray, or iTunes. Similarly, the app gives you the quick links to buy them just by hovering over the movie’s tile. I’m not a fan of using iTunes on the desktop so this is super helpful for me. I’d love to see the developer pull in Netflix’s latest titles for streaming as well, as it would make this app perfect for me.

I find that sites like Fandango and IMDB are extremely crowded when all I want is a tiny bit of information to help me make a decision, so when apps like this pop up they’re an automatic bookmark for me.

➤ WhatsOutt

When it comes to picking movies to watch on Netflix, I rely heavily on the ratings that other people give them. I’m not a fan of the 5-star rating system used by Netflix, but love the system used by Rotten Tomatoes.

I mostly browse for movies to add to my Netflix queue on the Netflix site itself, so to find out more information about recommended movies, I have to copy and paste to Google it, search on Rotten Tomatoes, or use a service like Moviegr.am before I make the decision to watch it later.

Luckily, one developer decided to wed the two together with a Chrome extension called “Rotten Netflix“. The extension is extremely lightweight and saves me quite a bit of steps when it comes to finding out what people really think about the movie I’m considering spending two or three hours watching.

Tomatoes are better than stars

Once you install the extension, the ratings from Rotten Tomatoes are inserted underneath the movies on the Netflix site. The great thing about Chrome extensions is that developers can hack away and insert things into pages and once you see the final product, it comes off as seamless. That’s exactly what this extension does perfectly.

The scores from Rotten Tomatoes sit right underneath the movie images and don’t require any clicks or hovering to see. If you use the Netflix site often, this is going to save quite a bit of time for you as well as help you pick movies for your queue.

The only thing I wish the extension did was show me some more information if I hover over the score, so that I don’t have to click away to the Rotten Tomatoes site, but that’s just me being picky.

If you’re looking for new titles to watch while you’re off for the Holidays, let this extension help you with your decision-making.

➤ Rotten Netflix

TorrentFreak has listed the top 10 most pirated movies of 2011, according to download data from BitTorrent. The site points out that the #1 pirated film of the year wasn’t as popular as last year’s #1, Avatar, which was downloaded over 16 million times. The numbers also show a downward trend over all of the top 10.

Are people pirating less, or did the movies just suck this year?

After taking a look at this list of movies, I have to say that 2011 was a really crappy year for films. And after taking a look at the #1 movie, people who pirate films have no taste for cinema.

All jokes aside, I believe that online streaming has made this dent in download numbers. Downloading movies requires tons of bandwidth, and the quality isn’t always the best. With Netflix streaming pretty great movies and TV shows, I’d venture to say that it had something to do with the download decline. Also, with more people watching movies on iPads, Kindles, and tablets, they don’t have hard drives for huge movie files from BitTorrent. Streaming is the way to go.

Having said that, here are your top 10 most stolen pirated movies of 2011:

Seriously? Fast Five? Regardless, some think that pirating isn’t about stealing, as much as it’s a convenience. However, if you add up all of these downloads there’s a lot of money missing from some very sad bank accounts this holiday season.

If you’re a movie buff, you’re aware that hours upon hours can be lost simply by searching IMDB and clicking all of the links. The site is like Wikipedia in that it’s one big rabbit hole.

If you don’t have hours to spend on IMDB, perhaps you’ll move over to Rotten Tomatoes. But even that site can take up an evening.

Enter Moviegr.am, a simple site that aggregates movie ratings from IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic.

Inception style

Instead of checking one source for movie ratings, Moviegr.am pulls them all together, and displays an aggregate rating. Not only is this a timesaver, but it can also help you find out if a movie is worth watching or not. I’ve found that ratings on IMDB seem to be higher and relaxed, while reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes are pretty hardcore.

Moviegr.am pulls in data from IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, You Tube, and Trailer Addict, so you’re pretty much covered for accuracy and detail when it comes to information about the movies you’re searching for. The site has real-time auto-suggest much like Google search, in case you can’t remember the exact name of the movie you’re thinking of.

Once you’ve found your movie, you can share the Moviegr.am page to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, which have become the big three social networking sites to share things on.

Of course, IMDB still beats out all other movie sites for depth of information, but sometimes you just want to do a quick search without being tripped up by the Inception approach of deeplinking that the site takes.

Moviegr.am is one of the best quick-search movie sites I’ve seen, so it’s definitely worth a bookmark.

➤ Moviegr.am

Seattle-based company Hark wants you to listen to the clips of some of the most famous and popular movies of all time. Sites have done this for years, usually by way of downloadable WAV or MP3 files, but mostly illegally. The difference with Hark is that the company has buy-in from some of the biggest production studios in the world. Now you can listen to some of these movie clips legally.

The clip library

Hark has a library of over 2 million quote clips to listen to, ranging from 1 second to a few minutes. Some of your favorite movies, such as Top Gun, have a few of the best quotes represented on the site. The great part is that Paramount, the movie studio behind Top Gun, uploaded these clips itself.

Other partners include Warner Bros, Lions Gate, Paramount, and CBS TV.

The company claims to have the largest collection of sound bites on the web, and has everything from movie and TV quotes, to political speeches and famous in-game calls by sportcasters. You can of course upload your own clips to the site.

Social clips

Hark lets you share clips to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr with share buttons. Also, each player can be embedded onto a website or a blog post.

For example, the embedded player below has a compilation of the 100 best movie quotes of all time, put together from one of Hark’s users. You should give it a listen and see how many of the movies you have seen and remember!

Top 100 Quotes in Movies

There is most certainly a community that loves quotes of any sort, and to be able to listen to them rather than just read them is a plus. The site is kind of busy on the homepage, but does give you a big search box and compilations of popular movies and TV shows to get you started.

Once you start listening to quotes, the site can be extremely addictive. The more quotes you listen to, the more quotes you remember liking, and being able to share them socially is fun.

Hark says that it has just crossed the one billion listen mark for clips on its site, and it is just getting started with features and partnerships. The company business model seems to revolve around ads and targeted purchase links to Amazon for the respective movie or TV show you’re checking out, as well as ringtones of your favorite quotes.

iOS app Can’t Wait! doesn’t want you to have to go to theaters to see the latest and hottest movie trailer, and it wants to deliver it right to your mobile device.

Once you set your account up, you’ll see a familiar Instagram style design for profile. You can amass followers, and follow others, and keep track of your actions. It’s pretty and it’s functional.

The app has three separate sections:

Discover

This is where you want to get started with Can’t Wait! It’s a list of movie trailers sorted by just added, popular, or release date. The design is slick, and all you have to do is tap on the movie trailer that you’d like to see. The video experience is great on Can’t Wait! and is probably its crowning accomplishment. Finding and viewing movie trailers on a mobile device can be a pain, especially when you can’t view flash on an iOS device.

The Feed

The feed on Can’t Wait! shows you all of the latest actions of the friends that you decide to follow on the service. This could be the movies they can’t wait to see, or the one’s they pass on. Those are the two options you’re given when checking out a movie trailer.

Inbox

Once you get a bunch of friends onto Can’t Wait! you can share movie trailers that you think they’d like with them. Also, you can post the trailers to Facebook and Twitter.

Movie studios are looking for new ways to get attention to trailers with big budgets and small, and Can’t Wait! could be a perfect fit for that. Right now the company is giving away Fandango coupons for actions taken within the app, so that’s a start in the right direction.

If you’re into movies, and you have an iOS device, this might be the app for you to check out. It’s free, and that’s way cheaper than going to the theater just to see the trailers.

The world is evolving far too quickly for us to keep up with it.

Formerly our main forms of entertainment were spending time with family and playing with the dog, but in our advanced digital age, we’re all glued to our flat-screen TVs in high definition, our laptop computers that surf the web at lightning speed and our mobile phones that are almost like handheld computers that also fit in your pocket and make calls.

Let’s take some time to reflect on the beauty that was traditional media and how all that’s changed in our new media world.

Before big blogs, you only read the NY Times

News that was hot off-the-wire was the only news that you knew. It was simple. You looked at the big headlines, read a bit into the details, and didn’t worry too much about all the other things in life.

Now, we’re overflowing with information, reading blogs with added commentary to today’s news, understanding what’s happening in the world more in-depth because information not only contains announcements, but analysis.

Before YouTube, there was TV

You anxiously waited for your Prime Time television shows to come on, and you never missed an episode because it would be a long time and an arduous task to make up the lost airing. It was simple, you watched TV from 8 – 10pm every weeknight.

Now you’re on YouTube, watching viral video after viral video from when you get out of work until dinner time, then after dinner time, you’re back on to watch more videos until it’s time to pass out at 1 or 2 am.

Before Netflix, you had the movie theatre

Going to the theatres was one of the nicest pleasures on a Friday night. You take your date or a few friends and get ready to get sucked into 2 hours of non-stop, audio and visual entertainment that only a real movie theatre could provide with its surround sound, large screen projection and overpriced and over greased popcorn.

Now, with movies on-demand, having the ability to stream top flicks and borrow unlimited amounts of DVDs without late charges, you’re more than comfortable staying in bed to watch a movie than travel to the theatre and spend $10 on one film ticket.

Before the Kindle, you had paperback books

Remember that nice shelf of books you used to have? The same one with all the classics your father read to you when you were a child, with the books that got you through those boring high school years spent at home, and even those that you get comfort in curling up to some nights after a long, long day of work.

Now, when space is becoming a limited resource and buying titles off of your Kindle is quick, easy and cheap, you can’t help but take advantage of the fact that you can access thousands more books than your apartment could handle, and thousands more books than you can physically read.

Before Digg, Reddit and even StumbleUpon, you asked for a trusted friend’s opinion or waited for someone to email you a useful link

You loved when a friend shared something useful. It was like a nice treat at the end of your day when you looked at your personal email inbox and saw a friendly message from your trusted friend sharing an interesting article to a story that you otherwise would not have seen.

Now, links and such are flying every which way, and you’re prone to click anything you see with a big, eye-catching headline. While our abundance of information has been such a great thing, sometimes you get the longing for more simplicity.

This digital age has surely changed the way we consume media, and clearly has its pros and cons. But it’s at least nice to look back every once and a while and think about the way things used to be, even if we decide to continue moving away from the traditional methods.