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Amazon to Enter the Online DVD Rental Business
ChrisF79 writes "Wired News is reporting that Amazon.com is hiring programmers to work with online dvd rentals. From the article: "Advertising for positions based at the company's Seattle headquarters, the listings seek engineers to help in 'building systems and algorithms that must move inventory between our fulfillment centers and our customers in a way that gives customers exactly what they want, when they want it.' The postings indicate they are specifically for an online DVD rental service." Netflix seems to have a stronghold on the market so despite numerous advantages for Amazon, especially economies of scale, can Amazon enter the market and surpass Netflix?"
Their other advantage is they've already done this in the UK.
Better flight searching coming soon.
Amazon already have a DVD rental system in the UK. I have never tried it as I use LoveFilm, but I hear its ok.
They have already entered the DVD rental market: Amazon.de Launches DVD Rental Service For Customers in Germany, Amazon.co.uk Launches New DVD Rental Service
WalMart also had those advantages over Netflix, but look at what happened. They stopped taking new subscriptions (because they intend to stop the service) not too long ago.
Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
However, personally, I really never use Amazon for anything more than books.
Why? In addition to books (used and new) I have bought multiple things there including two GPS units and a mobile phone.
The latest GPS unit (GPSMap 76CS) was on sale, no rebates necessary, and priced $50 less than its lower end unit (76C). Six months later, the price I got (with no mail-in-rebates) is still less than you can find 99% of the time.
The mobile phone (T-mobile Sidekick 1) came with instant and mail-in-rebates that totalled enough to make the phone $0 with on year of service.
Why would you only go to Amazon for books when there are so many bargains on there that I seem to only be able to find there?
I'm not an amazon.com rep, investor, or otherwise, just a happy customer.
I think the throttling thing is a bit of an exageration. I just pulled up my 3 month history on netflix's site, and I rented 20, 15, and 17 dvds for a total of 52 over 90 days. Before that I was renting roughly the same amount aswell. I have the 3 at a time plan, which is $18 a month. That means I'm paying $54 for 3 months, which works out to $1.04 per rental, whereas that site says they'll throttle you if you get under $2/per. It is possible that the occasional extra day waits are some sort of throttling measure, but it doesnt seem to me that they're very aggressive, if so. Well, atleast I think I'm getting a pretty good deal at 1.04/each.
Not anymore. Blockbuster is raising their fee to $17.99 as of August 19. Unless Netflix is raising their rates and I haven't heard about it, they are now the same price.
I may twist orthodoxy to partly justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely.
Not anymore.
There's also this spiffy-looking Dashflix dashboard thingy, which is only a viewer not an editor, but still neat... and free...
Netflix 2nd Quarter
I'd say on-track for a $650mil year is pretty successful.