Fandango.com, the nation’s top provider of advance movie tickets, reported that it’s selling 10 tickets per second to screenings of “The Hunger Games.”

“The Hunger Games” has sold out almost 2,000 showtimes on  Fandango and is on pace to become one of that company’s top five advance sellers, according to a press release today.

Now I may dating myself but I remember standing in a very long line at the Westchase 5 Cinema (Gessner @ Westheimer) just to buy tickets to Star Wars and then having to stand in another  line just to get in. And if your movie time was sold out, just wait in line until the next showing to use your tickets. That is what we used to call advanced ticket sales.

Now think about how you used to shop for industrial products.   Remember Thomas Registry, the set of light green books that used to sit on the shelves of every industrial company?  If you wanted a BOP Test Unit,  you had to look up a manufacturer that sold such a product, pick up the phone and try and reach a sales person at a particular BOP Test Unit company.  How times have changed…

Now you go to Google, on your laptop, desktop, iPad or smartphone; type in BOP Test Unit and the companies that sell these products are listed, right at your finger tips.  If they designed their website right, within a click or two you have all the information you need about a particular BOP Test Unit.

As technology has helped the movie business sell more advanced tickets, technology has helped shorten the industrial sales cycle.