Wal-Mart Eyes iTune Turf
By: Greg Levine | Features Editor
Will DVDs go the way of vaudeville? Wal-Mart may be helping to speed up the digital revolution – and to drive hard-copy entertainment to extinction.
Reporting from Los Angeles for “Closing Bell,” CNBC’s Julia Boorstin noted that the world’s No. 1 retailer on Tuesday started selling DVD copies of Superman Returns – but also offered the movie via an Internet video download service, a first for Wal-Mart.
The discount giant is testing the digital waters ahead of a full-fledged Web video service it plans to launch in 2007, taking on download providers like Apple Computer’s iTunes and Amazon.com’s Unbox. Between already declining disc sales and the rift between next-generation HD-DVD and Blu-ray disc makers, the technology seems ever closer to obsolescence.
And it seems the hard discs aren’t the only modern technology that may go the way of the dinosaurs.
