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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Blockbuster in Talks To Acquire Movielink

WSJ:

Movie-rental giant Blockbuster Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire Movielink LLC, an online movie-downloading company owned by the major Hollywood studios, according to people familiar with the matter.

While the proposed deal is small -- the price is said to be less than $50 million in cash and stock -- it has important strategic implications. For Blockbuster, it represents a quick way into the online download business. Movielink has quietly peddled films online since 2002, with little success. In the past year or so, the nascent field has begun to pick up momentum, with big players like Apple Inc.'s.

This is actually pretty huge.

Mac-oriented people won't appreciate this, though they'll think Apple invented it when Apple TV comes out, but here's something I do all the time: We have an Xbox 360 connected to our largest TV (and a 5.1 home theater setup). We now use this Xbox as our primary TV interface, thanks to its Media Center Extender software, which connects to a Windows Vista-based Media Center PC (and cable box) back in my office. Using this interface, my kids watch recorded and live TV shows, and we access our entire photo, music, and video collections, all stored on the PC and server in the office. OK, fine. But we also rent movies via MovieLink, and it works seamlessly. It's unclear why MovieLink (and related services like CinemaNow) have never taken off, but the prices can be decent and download speeds (especially over FIOS, like we have, or a cable modem connection) are excellent. Anyway, this is the future, and it's actually been here for quite a while.

Labels: Digital media, Internet, iTunes

[ Posted at 9:10 AM | Permalink ]