Blockbuster has purchased movie download service Movielink, strengthening their online position in the fight against Netflix.

The move has been a source of speculation for months and it makes a lot of sense for both companies. Despite studio backing and as a result a large film library, Movielink has lagged far behind in growth compared to the video rental giants.

For Blockbuster, this is an opportunity to add download capability, the one area of service in which it is not currently competing with Netflix.

Then again, maybe this is just a case of Movielink being ahead of its time. It takes 30-90 minutes to download a film using the Movielink service (though it’s progressive so you can start watching sooner); way more time than a run to the video store. In another few years this won’t be the case.

When we get to the point where it takes less time to to download HD than it does to drive to Blockbuster who will go to the trouble? And who will ask for mail order DVDs when films can be downloaded at equal quality in minutes?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Deals, News, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.