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For as long as I can remember, Blockbuster Video has been the nation-wide go-to spot to rent movies. Some of my earliest movie experiences as a child involved movies my family rented from Blockbuster. When the popularity of online music downloads began shuttering music stores, the world realized that Blockbuster's days were similarly numbered. Now it seems that number is quickly approaching zero as the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that an impending bankruptcy could be as close as a few weeks away for the video and game rental giant.
Blockbuster Video is launching an API called "Blockbuster Everywhere." The new cross-channel API is designed to deliver films, reviews and real-time inventory to devices that include phones, set top boxes, gaming consoles and other point-of-sale locations such as gas stations.
The Blockbuster story is another example of how companies are re-architecting through open API's to reconfigure their businesses. A point of sale can be in any number of places. It may be a store, the Web or through a platform like Tivo.
Blockbuster is bringing its OnDemand service to both Windows Mobile and Google Android phones, starting March 24th with the launch of the T-Mobile HTC HD2 smartphone. On that device, Blockbuster customers will be able to download and watch new releases directly on their mobile phones while also gaining access to queue management and movie locator tools similar to those found in Blockbuster's iPhone application.
The company has also confirmed that they're working on an Android app, which is likely to launch on the "select Motorola phones" Blockbuster previously hinted at when they partnered with the handset manufacturer last summer. Motorola is the maker of several popular Android-powered handsets including the Droid, Backflip, Devour, Cliq and Cliq XT, but Blockbuster won't yet confirm which of these will be able to utilize the new mobile service.
Blockbuster is struggling, and seems to be trying as hard as it can to keep that moniker. Even though the company's finance's are looking up, it continues to make one questionable move after another in its attempt to compete with Netflix, Apple, and Amazon. From its decision to try buying Circuit City -- another struggling retailer -- in some crazy scheme to sell movies and TVs in the same store, to the company's latest hair-brained move: in-store movie download kiosks.
Lots of Internet TV-related coverage on our network blog last100 this week, including news that Blockbuster is readying a set-top box in junction with the company's recent acquisition of online movie service Movielink; a version of the BBC's TV catch-up service iPlayer is now available for the Nintendo Wii game console; and Joost competitor Babelgum is moving away from being purely a content distributor to also commissioning original and exclusive content of its own.
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