Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Netflix Rolls Out Video on Demand Service

It seems that Netflix is starting the long migration to digital downloads.
The Los Gatos-based company plans to unveil the new "Watch Now" feature
Tuesday, but only a small number of its more than 6 million subscribers will get
immediate access to the service, which is being offered at no additional
charge.


It seems like this would bode well for the stock but not so fast. They have gone from a 2 horse race between them and Blockbuster to a very crowded field:
Online movie delivery already is available through services like CinemaNow,
MovieFlix, Movielink, Vongo and Amazon.com Inc.'s recently launched Unbox. Apple Inc. also is emerging as major player, with hundreds of movies and TV shows on sale at its iTunes store and a new device that promises to transport media from a computer to a TV screen.

Unless Netflix can rise above the others and become the king of digital downloads they will probably go the way of the dodo. I would still rather get a DVD from the mail and put it into my DVD player at the present time. It is much better then waiting forever to download the thing and then having to move it to my TV through the purchase of some other $300 piece of hardware. I guess that attitude may be old fashioned in a few short years.

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