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Amazon Talking with Netflix And Blockbuster
Mike from HackingNetflix.com writes "Reuters is reporting that 'Amazon.com has approached online DVD rental service companies, including Blockbuster and Netflix, to explore a partnership rather than launching its own U.S. DVD rental service.'" More from the article: "Despite its online might, shopping giant Amazon faces a potentially expensive battle to crack the competitive U.S. online rental market. The company started its own DVD rental service in Britain in December. Rumors that Amazon would enter the U.S. online DVD rental market sparked a price war late last year between Blockbuster and Netflix, which pioneered online DVD rental and now controls about 75 percent of the market." So there may be a happy ending to this tale for Netflix after all.
Apple is dying, Tivo is dying, BSD is dying, netflix is dying etc etc etc... /me is tired of hearing this kind of nonsense.
within six months. It sort of blows me away that it's not already there. Netflix knows the movies I like much better than Amazon. It knows what I've seen, what I've rented twice. If I wanted to browse some movies to buy I'd go to Netflix and search around, before heading over to Amazon to actually place my order.
I'll bet they'd like a cut of those revenues too.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Not likely. Online video rentals are really about quality vs quantity and that is not Wal-marts forte. Netflix has a large selection of movies but may not always have enough of the most popular ones. Walmart would always have enough copies of popular dvds but would have a limited catalog otherwise. Besides if they were going to break into video rental they would have done it as brick and mortar first.
There's risk from either direction. The attempt to squash them like a bug could also fail, yes, and at ruinous expense? We don't know what terms are being discussed, but there would be concessions and benefits on either side. Not that Amazon isn't dealing from a position of some strength, especially because it can play Netflix off against the Blockbuster evil empire.
Netflix is already facing Blockbuster's recent conversation to their own business model. If I was Netflix negotiating a deal of this sort, I'd be thinking that any sort of Amazon relationship could give me the presence to withstand that. I'd maybe want some sort of mutual benefits situation with respect to DVD sales off of Amazon.
(And I don't know enough about Netflix's base of customers, except that it includes me, but I'd bet Amazon has a colossally higher visibility for the average consumer. Amazon is on the level of google, with more staying power to boot. Whether Netflix has a lot of customers or not, the question is whether there's a lot of growth left in the market, and whether Amazon's presence would get at it.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
It's not that simple. What Amazon brings to the table is exposure. Amazon is without a doubt the world's largest on-line retailer with the most exposure, and that's something that Netflix can capitalize on. Most retailers or sales oriented companies would give up body parts to partner with Amazon, and that includes some very high profile companies like my previous employer who was the market leader in luxury retail.
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
I'm a Netflix fan, but think Amazon should go it alone for no other reason than I love a price war. :)
NetFlix already has a healthy base of customers, and anyone interested in such a service already knows about them. What does Amazon have to bring to the table, other than not crushing them like a bug?
A stronger brand. Despite what you say, I doubt that most interested comsumers are aware of online DVD rental.