The takeaway most people will have from this New York Times story is that Wal-Mart is getting into the movie downloading business. The real news in the story, though, is that BitTorrent, source of 40% of all Internet traffic by some accounts, has cut a deal with eight major players, including 20th Century Fox, Paramount and MTV. Here’s a Wired blog post about the deal.
The journey of recouping a $1.65 billion investment begins with a single V CAST download. Details here.
There’ll probably be a lot of reporting in the news today on whether CyberMonday was a success or not. According to this C|Net article, though, the very notion of CyberMonday is bushwah.
The talk radio punditocracy must be celebrating some kind of victory this year. If not, I’m surprised, because editorial writers like this are hailing the decision.
Yes, “Merry Christmas” has returned to Wal-Mart as well as to Macy’s, Sears, Kohl’s and probably a bunch of others.
Call me a cynical Scrooge, but on some level it feels like a kind of final straw, a symptom of a cultural acknowledgement that Christmas has shed all pretention of being a spiritual holiday and has become far and away a commercial one.
Of course, when you read a story like this one that talks of a “near riot” outside a Circuit City on Black Friday, it’s hard not to be cynical.
As we pass another Black Friday and enter the thick of holiday shopping madness, you have to admire a company that’s able to break through the advertising uberclutter and get noticed.
Charmin has done exactly that by (surprise, surprise) putting customers first. And what do busy New York City shoppers want this holiday season? A clean public toilet … which is exactly what Charmin delivered.
The result? A search for “Charmin Times Square” delivers more than 250 Technorati results and more than 300 Google results. I saw the story at least a half dozen times on various news channels over Thanksgiving, and Charmin even scored this editorial in the New York Times.
I don’t know what the cost of this venture is to Charmin, but it sure seems like they’re getting their investment back many many times over in publicity and good will.
