Bezos at the Movies

Amazon's Unbox service, which allows you to stream movies and other forms of entertainment to your TV set-top box, hasn't been a great success. Apparently customers didn't like to wait for the download to be completed, because they wanted to start watching The Fast and the Furious immediately, while the microwave popcorn was still hot. Well, The New York Times reports that Jeff Bezos has heard those complaints. Now his company is introducing Amazon Video on Demand, with 40,000 titles available to stream and watch immediately. The system's rollout in limited markets begins today. Ultimately the service will be built-in with high-end sets made by Sony and other manufacturers. For now, provided you can find a title you like in the library, they can be purchased by download or rented by streaming for one-time use.

Does this mean Amazon can compete with Netflix, Blockbuster, Hulu, iTunes-Apple TV, and others hawking digital content without the supposed hassles of DVDs and the US postal system? At present, Unbox is restricted to PCs (sorry, Mac users) and TiVo boxes. For that reason, it seems, Unbox will be folded into the new VoD service. Yet that service appears to be initially limited to Sony owners, or those who pony up for the "Sony Bravia Internet Video link" gizmo, which goes for $300.

Then there's library size. Netflix claims around 90,000 titles to download. Amazon's 40,000 excludes the Disney-Pixar-ABC family of companies (sorry, Lost fans), which are allied with Apple. And as anyone who's scrolled through a VoD menu knows, those libraries tend to be choked with lame old TV shows and movies you'd only watch for free on a long airplane flight.

For some, it'll still be easier to bicycle up to Scarecrow and thumb through the shelves. And for Bezos, if this new VoD service flops, look forward to a new round of rumors--like those last year--that Amazon might try to buy Netflix, its hard and digital libraries, and thus gain access to its 7.5 million loyal customers (many of whom surely still lack the vaunted "Sony Bravia Internet Video link"). Stay tuned.