Wal-Mart has opened an online DVD rental service at its Web site, confirming speculation that the market for online DVD rentals created by Netflix would attract a large, established company. Wal-Mart's offering is aimed directly at Netflix, offering similar services for $18.86 per month, versus Netflix's rate of $19.95. For each service, customers request DVDs online, and the company pays postage to ship the films. There are no due dates for either service, though subscribers are allowed only three movies at a time. Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, said he is not concerned about Wal-Mart's "unimaginative" and "slavish imitation of Netflix." He said his company knows "the area better" and can beat Wal-Mart. A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said the company would modify the service in coming months based on feedback from subscribers. She said the number of subscribers will probably be limited until the full roll-out of the service next year.

Via San Jose Mercury News, 15 October 2002 and EduPage

Posted by jzawodn at October 16, 2002 04:42 PM

Reader Comments
# dvd rental said:

Competition is what drives any industry to the point where customers ultimately win out. Just one dvd rental company on the internet means they set the rules. Enter Walmart, CafeDVD and a host of other online dvd rental companies, and suddenly they're competing over price, service and selection. The larger firms still hold a big market share, particularly because of their ability to launch aggressive ad campaigns, but eventually other companies will come into the limelight. There are exceptions of course (Microsoft)...

on May 2, 2003 08:29 PM
# Reality said:

After trying both Wal Mart and Netflix, I cancelled my Wal Mart trial and would never advise anyone to stay on after the free trial. The selection of dvd's to rent from Wal Mart is much less than Netflix (thousands less, in fact), Wal Mart has much slower shipping times and they take longer to post your returned dvd's. Basically, just like the stores themselves, Wal Mart online dvd rentals suck!

on September 21, 2003 11:06 AM
# Proscribed Relationships said:

If the PageRank is dead, what ele is alive? Keyword frequency? Anythng else?

Even if Pagerank is not the ideal tool, is much more harder to spam, so it will rule Google for some cuple of years....

Just my 2 cents

on November 2, 2003 03:52 PM
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