Wal-Mart today announced the debut of its VUDU video rental and purchase service for the iPad, avoiding Apple's required 30% cut of revenue for app-based content purchases by launching as a web app.
Beginning today, iPad users can go to VUDU.com and browse through VUDU’s entertainment content library, which includes more than 20,000 blockbusters, Hollywood classics, independent films and TV episodes, then rent or purchase and watch them instantly. For one touch access to VUDU, customers can add a VUDU icon to their iPad desktops by clicking the “Add to Home Screen” button when on VUDU.com.
VUDU's service is limited to standard definition and omits some titles such as those from Disney, but has proven to be a popular option for those looking for on-demand streaming, particularly for new releases not available through Netflix.
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On a separate note, Digital Music News reports that Wal-Mart has also announced to its music partners that it will be shutting down its MP3 download store later this month. From the letter sent to Wal-Mart's distribution and licensing partners:
After eight years in business, the Walmart Music Downloads Store located at mp3.walmart.com will close on August 28, 2011. All content in the Store will be disabled and no longer available for download from the store.
"The sale of physical record music products on Walmart.com as well as in Walmart US retail stores will remain unaffected. Walmart Soundcheck (soundcheck.walmart.com) will remain operational as a live streaming site without any download options."
Wal-Mart notes that it will continue to provide support to customers who purchased tracks through the download store, but content will no longer be available for sale. The download store has been in existence since late 2003, but has had little success eating into the iTunes Store's dominance in the digital music download market.
Top Rated Comments
Youre so right! I was watching a TV series in bed the other night, thinking, what an idiot! I should move the TV in here! Or maybe awkwardly hold up a laptop, to give my arms a decent workout and generate some soothing summer heat. And yesterday, out on the porch, I was so dumb tooI could have simply run an extension cord out there and had any size screen I wanted! Later on, I was bored at a friends house waiting for them to get ready to leave. Why did I keep watching the show during that wasted time, when I could have waited until I got home? And dont get me started on my foolishness when someone else is watching something on the big screen, and I want to watch something else in a quieter room of my choosing. And to think I used to do these things sometimes on my little iPhone before I had an iPad! I suppose its possible that a small screen held in your lap fills your view the same as a giant screen far away... but the math escapes my walnut brain.
:p
This is a joke, right?
Apple provides very valuable service even in those cases: they bring the customers, with existing accounts, credit cards, and trust in the iTunes system; they handle the financial transactions, as well as customer service relating to those transactions; they build and maintain the online store where the “free” player is promoted and discovered; they host the app (storage, power, insurance, staff, bandwidth) and all future updates, including automatically pushing out app updates to all users, which is of grear value to the media company, not just the users. None of that is free for Apple to design, build, test, or operate.
Now, you can certainly argue specific numbers, and 30% sounds high to me, from my armchair here. I hope (and assume) these negotiations haven’t entirely ceased.