Thank you for shopping with us, says Wal-Mart
Users of Wal-Mart's video download service will have noticed something a little different when they visited the media download website recently. Instead of the usual catalogue of media available for download, a simple message tells users:
"The Wal-Mart Video Downloads Service closed on 12/21/07.
Thank you for shopping with us. Please follow these steps while continuing to enjoy your videos.
Suggested Steps:
- If you purchased videos from this service in the past, please visit our frequently asked questions page to learn about important usage rights and support information.
- To avoid seeing this message in the future, please delete this page from your favorites."
That as they say, is that. Reuters report that Hewlett Packard, the technology partner that provided the systems that ran the Wal-Mart service, discontinued its partnership with Wal-Mart. By doing so, Wal-Mart has decided not to seek a new partner citing poor performance of the download service as the main reason.
2008 in my estimation is shaping up to be as confusing as ever for consumers. With HD-DVD and Blu Ray still battling it out and DRM-riddled distribution services such as Wal-Mart's failing to take off, I think I'll stick to good ol' DVD.
Source: mediadownloads.walmart.com
