Google Goes Video:
Will you be patronizing Google’s new Video Store when it opens? Episodes of CSI and Charlie Rose look rather attractive to me. I’m thinking this may be yet another nail in the coffin of the corner video store. Seeing this item (via Largehearted Boy) about the closure of the legendary Rhino Records Westwood, where I used to browse on weekends when I worked as a day laborer for Warner Brothers in the early 1990s, got me thinking there may simply not be a market for retail music and movie stores in our digitally delivered future. And while that convenience sure sounds great, the fallout may be much sadder and more painful than I had originally imagined.
Thoughts? Feelings?
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2 Replies to “Google Goes Video:”
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The generic corner video store is already doomed, and good riddance too. Competitive bricks and mortar stores offer high volume and convenience (Blockbuster, Hollywood) or specialty concerns. I don’t mourn the loss of “99 cent video,” who never stocked enough copies of good movies, since I belong to Facets (facets.org), whose membership includes free admission to their theater and discounts on classes. Further down the road is “Odd Obsession Video”, a B-movie rental paradise stocking weird stuff you can’t get from Netflix. Larger cities can sustain this, whether a small town video rental outlet can survive online demand is yet to be seen.
Google video is trying to be the Netflix of TV clips. Blurring the line between TV and DVD allows them to reap profits from selling both. I don’t see the appeal in paying $2 (or most any price) for the privilege of seeing an episode of CSI, but enough people actually might.
The generic corner video store is already doomed, and good riddance too. Competitive bricks and mortar stores offer high volume and convenience (Blockbuster, Hollywood) or specialty concerns. I don’t mourn the loss of “99 cent video,” who never stocked enough copies of good movies, since I belong to Facets (facets.org), whose membership includes free admission to their theater and discounts on classes. Further down the road is “Odd Obsession Video”, a B-movie rental paradise stocking weird stuff you can’t get from Netflix. Larger cities can sustain this, whether a small town video rental outlet can survive online demand is yet to be seen.
Google video is trying to be the Netflix of TV clips. Blurring the line between TV and DVD allows them to reap profits from selling both. I don’t see the appeal in paying $2 (or most any price) for the privilege of seeing an episode of CSI, but enough people actually might.