May 29th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Blockbuster is launching a strange pilot to test in-store kiosks with downloadable movies. I say strange, since I thought the benefit of downloading was you didn’t have to get out of your chair. But that’s why it’s a pilot I suppose. Blockbuster still has to negotiate the deals with the studios and the movies currently only work with Archos devices. But if the demand is there, it wouldn’t be too difficult to fix these two problems.
I just wonder if there’s a market for this service. You would say the kind of high tech person interested in doing this, would have a high speed internet connection at home. Other people will take the DVD rental instead. I don’t think this is going to solve Blockbuster’s ‘iTunes problem.’
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:15 am
Remember how the new movies at the iTunes store are very fairly priced? Well, here’s how Apple did it. Loss leader strategy, selling the product below its costs. How nice of them right? Well, this practice is illegal in some countries, but since it’s not in the US I won’t mind. As long as they don’t hike the price when they have enough customers.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Apple stock jumped over 2% when the company announced they are going to release movies simultaneous with their physical counterpart DVD. Normally the iTunes store would have to wait over a month to get a new movie in, but most Hollywood studios are now releasing their babies right onto the net.
The news comes just days after the MPAA stated the industry was too slow with adjusting to their ‘tech-savvy’ crowd. The time has come for Hollywood to embrace digital distribution. “This is a really good example of how they are moving more quickly toward it and we think Apple is best-positioned (to benefit),” said analyst Shannon Cross of Cross Research.
A iTunes movie will only set you back between $9.99 and $14.99, which isn’t as overprices as you would expect. Not at all. The major drawback however, still seems the limited playback capability of all digital downloads. In this case mostly restricted to Apple hardware. When will we see an universal format we can play and keep forever?
