Blockbuster CEO James Keyes has fallen in love with being able to watch movies on his BlackBerry. So much so, in fact, that his company is now in talks with handset makers like Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung about ways to get Blockbuster movies onto cell phones everywhere. Keyes has been watching movies downloaded from Movielink (which Blockbuster acquired not too long ago) that are then transferred to a memory card inside his BlackBerry. He wants the process to be as easy as possible for consumers but hasn’t quite yet figured out the logistics. I might suggest a "mobile" setting from within Movielink and an option to download movies directly to 3G-enabled phones. Blockbuster in handset maker talks [Reuters] → Read More
With competition heating up between rivals Netflix and Blockbuster, the next move isn’t even about DVD rentals anymore, it’s now about the downloads. Netflix has offered VOD for awhile now and really has out-shined Blockbuster quite a bit. Now with the purchase of Movielink, Blockbuster has more customers, more ground to work on, and the ability to offer more than 3300 titles for download. The price of the buyout has yet to be confirmed, but word is that it was a little under $50 million. Too bad Netflix still has more VOD movies. Keep trying Blockbuster! I may have canceled my subscription with you but I’d like to see more options for online DVD rentals. Blockbuster buys movie download service Movielink [Reuters] → Read More
Blockbuster announced the acquisition of movie download site Movielink this evening. The price is not being disclosed (meaning it isn’t “material” to Blockbuster’s shareholders), although the Wall Street Journal says it was less than $20 million. Movielink was created in 2002 as a joint venture of most of the big studios – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios. $100 million or so was spent building the company. That’s $80 million in losses for the studio investors on their Movielink project, which is money that could have been invested in higher ROI investments. Like suing their customers. This is clearly a hedge move by Blockbuster, which is locked in a death spiral with the cheaper and more convenient Netflix. Netflix also launched an awesome free movie on demand product earlier this year (and are using much of their operating profits to fund it). Until now, Blockbuster had no answer. But Movielink certainly isn’t going to be a silver bullet for Blockbuster. We looked at all of the players in Movielink’s space last October. Their competitors include, besides Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, CinemaNow and Guba (and, let’s be honest, BitTorrent). Movielink has a very deep library of movies, but they are DRM’d to the hilt and the studios force them to price downloads at higher-than-dvd prices. Blockbuster’s salad days ended in 2002, and the stock has slid steadily since then. It is no longer profitable. There are just too many options for consumers who want to watch movies at home. The company’s biggest asset, and biggest problem, are the long term leases it has on its 9,000 retail stores. It needs to defocus on Netflix and think about how to use those stores to its advantage. Otherwise, its long term prognosis is clear – deadpool. → Read More
We started testing the various movie download services earlier this summer when rumors of Apple’s new movie download store first heated up. We’re now regular customers of three of the services. Michael Arrington is an iTunes junkie because he likes having movies and music videos on his iPod, Nik Cubrilovic likes Movielink and I’m hooked on Guba’s very low prices. For those of you considering ditching the Netflix account or the weekly trip to Blockbuster and downloading movies instead, one of these might be just what you’re looking for. If you are a Mac user, the choice is easy. Only iTunes will work on your platform. If you are on a PC you can try any of the services below, which include CinemaNow, Movielink, Guba, Amazon Unbox and iTunes. Note, however, that you’ll be forced to use Internet Explorer to download these movies unless you use iTunes or Amazon Unbox. DRM is a big part of all of these products. Make sure you read the terms and conditions carefully before agreeing. At least for Amazon Unbox, the terms are somewhat draconian. DRM will keep many users away who’d like the ability to burn movies to DVD, transfer to other computers, etc. These users will simply purchase and rip DVDs directly (removing DRM), or use bittorent to acquire movies. More on each below. Guba Since branching out from their Usenet product through a deal to sell Waner Bros. movies in June and Sony movies in July, GUBA has mainly been competing on price and referral fees for recommending more users to the site. GUBA also features user-generated and usenet videos for free alongside premium movies users can buy or rent. Usenet movies can be downloaded in iPod and PSP formats as well. CinemaNow CinemaNow’s most recent claim to fame has been their release of “Too Fast Too Furious” online at the same time as the DVD release, an industry first. They also have a Burn-to-DVD feature that allows you to burn a DVD playable on almost any DVD player for select titles. CinemaNow provides movies from Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, NBC Universal, Sony, and Warner Bros. Like most of the others, CinemaNow requires users to have a Windows PC and use Internet Explorer. MovieLink Formed out of a joint venture between major movie studios, Movielink has by far the largest catalog of new release and library titles. Their major partners include MGM, → Read More
