April 26th, 2006
Meet Vongo, Netflix-Killer
That’s tyrannosaurus rex Sue, now a fossil on display at the Field Museum in Chicago.
She and her homeys died 80 million years ago so there would be enough fossil fuels to run the U.S. Postal Service truck that brings your Netflix envelope with the movies you ordered.
But then maybe ol’ T-Rex did double duty. That could be her ashes reconstituted in the $3.50 a gallon gasoline you are going to burn up to drive to Blockbuster and rent a few DVDs.
But there is a more converged, better way.
AT&T has just partnered with Starz Entertainment Group to offer a co-branded AT&T and Vongo website.
For $9.99 a month, subscribers get unlimited access to 1,500 movies and videos as well as a streaming, live Starz TV channel.
I have been trying Vongo out. Here’s what it looks like:
Just yesterday, I blogged that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that digital movie distribution isn’t here yet, but the company hopes to be ready for it around, say, 2010 or so.
Netflix, sorry to say, has their head in the sand. Here’s why:
Sue and her kind got killed by a comet or asteroid that hit the earth.
Netflix may get killed by a comet or asteroid as well. One named Vongo.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
