Wednesday, March 16, 2005

An Idea For BlockBuster

This past week I was in Blockbuster looking for something to rent. My cable service doesn't have "real" VOD yet, so I have to keep giving these guys my business. Scanning through all of the titles and forgetting what movie is about what, I had an idea.

A lot of times I see a movie title in the store and I don't remember what it's about. I read the two sentences on the back cover and the actor list but it doesn't help much.

Why couldn't Blockbuster do this. Blockbuster has their own barcode on each DVD and video so it's a closed network. I'm sure they have a licensing agreement of some kind /w the movie studios.

Allow every barcode on each DVD/video to link you to the original movie trailer when you click on it. Click on Million Dollar Baby and see the 1 minute trailer they show on TV.

I can't imagine this would be costly and it would give Blockbuster a valued added service. There might be a way to hear what critics had to say about the movie. You could even let a BB customer leave a comment about the movie for someone to click on later. A Blockbuster critic society. Maybe BB allows a "comment on 5 movies and get one free" type of deal.

So clicking on the code could get you the one minute trailer AND a listing of comments.

For the games section, click on a video game and get a list of the top players for each one based on score. I'm not a video game guy, but I imagine the interaction with others online is half the experience. Finding the best player to play against might be a value added feature for BB. Could you create a "society" for a specific game? Maybe a message board with listings of all the players if you wanted to challenge one in a match.

I only pick on Blockbuster because I think their days are numbered and they will HAVE to creative and add value to each store. Why not do it now before vide on demand is here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Look's like you are thinking outside the "block"