(Reuters) – Warner Bros is making some of its films available on Facebook, opening up a new revenue source for the Internet social network and signaling new competition for online entertainment companies.

Consumers can pay for the movies using Facebook Credits, a virtual currency so far used mainly in social games on the site, according to Warner Bros, a unit of Time Warner Inc, on Tuesday.

Facebook, which makes money mostly through online advertising, takes 30 percent of the revenue from sales by third parties on the website using Credits.

The service will initially be available in the United States, the company said.

The streaming of full-length Hollywood films on Facebook creates a new role for the 500-million-plus member social network, which has grown into one of the most powerful Web players by making it easy to share photos, videos and other content with friends.

In a note to investors on Tuesday, Goldman Sachs analyst Ingrid Chung said Facebook represents a long-term threat to online rental service Netflix Inc that caught Wall Street investors by surprise.

“The ‘wisdom of friends’ could be a bigger driver of movie viewership than the ‘wisdom of crowds,’” wrote Chung.

[Full article at Reuters.com]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Time Warner Cable Inc said on Thursday it would shelve plans to test a system that bills customers for the amount of broadband bandwidth they use instead of at a flat fee to access the Internet from home after an uproar from consumer groups and politicians.

“It is clear from the public response over the last two weeks that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about our plans,” Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt said in a statement.

The company said it would alter plans to test consumption-based billing while continuing customer education about it. Time Warner Cable has been testing the billing system in Beaumont, Texas.

Most major Internet service providers in the United States use flat-fee billing.

Britt said the company would not go ahead with its plans for additional tests of the billing system until it has consulted more with customers and other parties.

Time Warner Cable said it was working to make measurement tools available “as quickly as possible” to help customers understand how much bandwidth they use.