Movie Gallery -- the media cats behind Hollywood Video and Game Crazy stores -- just announced a foray into the online video rental service. Set to launch sometime in mid-to-late 2007, the new service is meant to complement its brick-and-mortar business. They also announced an extension to their movie kiosk program by adding another 200 movie vending machines to the 74 units already occupying high traffic areas in malls and supermarkets. How the new rental service (no mention of download-to-own) will integrate (if at all) with their recently acquired
MovieBeam service is unclear. One thing's for sure however, Blockbuster had better get a move on if they hope to compete in this redefined marketplace which is both
busting at the seams while
simultaneously converging.
[Via
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jessica @ Mar 21st 2007 11:27AM
I have to say, it's hard to imagine a product like this being wildly popular, when you have giants like Apple getting in the game. Still, Apple needs to add the rental option -- I expect that to happen.
The Apple TV, just released, is pretty exciting. It would be perfect if it offered rentals that you could order up directly from the web, not from a nearby computer.
One has to wonder what is going to happen to the "on demand" services offered by cable companies. It's pretty clear these new services are going to cause them a whole lot of pain:
http://advancedmediacommittee.typepad.com/emmyadvancedmedia/2007/01/over_the_top_fi.html
- Jessica
James @ Mar 22nd 2007 1:50PM
Hey, that gives me an idea. Redbox should institute a fee-per-month version of the service where you agree to have a flat fee (seems like ~18 bucks is the going rate) charged to your credit card at the beginning of the month, then you can get X movies out at a time and "exchange" them any time you want. They obviously already track who you are by your credit card # (when I go to a new RedBox, my email address is already filled in), so they could just create an "account" that you authenticate using your credit card. Hrm... I should write in to them. They'd slaughter Blockbuster...