Amazon talking to Netflix and Blockbuster about online DVD rentals
Amazon has supposedly been about to get into the online DVD rental game for months now, but so far, no dice. We'd been wondering what the hold up was (it's usually how we spend our free time), but now it's come out that instead of trying to launch their own service from scratch they've been in talks with both Blockbuster and Netflix about partnering up with one of them. Everybody involved has refused to comment on the story, but it's not really clear why Amazon would have to partner with anybody to get this going. They've got the distribution infrastructure and the customer base, so it almost sounds like they were trying to score a sweet deal with Netflix or Blockbuster by making them think that if they didn't work with Amazon they'd have another major competitor on their hands (or it could be something even more nefarious—that Amazon just wanted a peek behind the curtain at how each company does things).
[Thanks everyone who sent this one in]
UPDATE: A few readers have pointed out that Amazon already does online DVD rentals in the UK, which only makes it even more intriguing that they're taking their own sweet time getting things rolling over here.
