Wal-Mart's Vudu Trance - home entertainment and apps

mot-bile 2010 - What is exactly "home entertainment" according to Wal-Mart ? Everyday low prices for home movies or everyday more promotions for everything else on your TV screen ?

The Bentonville, AR giant acquired VUDU, Inc, an online video service embedded in broadband-ready TVs and Blu-ray players, and "combining VUDU's unique digital technology and service with Walmart's retail expertise and scale will provide customers with unprecedented access to home entertainment options as they migrate to a digital environment".*

But Wal-Mart also mentions VUDU Apps, a very crucial entry point in households for all sorts of services, including Twitter or Facebook, the kind of "web family names" we mentioned earlier as the hottest TV stars of the year (see "Skype on your TV : home improvement ?" - 20100106).

Wal-Mart was not the only bidder for this entry point : it won over direct rivals (Amazon & co), victims of Vudu curses (Blockbuster & co) media manufacturers turner entertainers (Sony & co), or the usual Redmond suspects (Micro and Soft).

Now back to the smaller screen, but still in the retailing arena : SK Telecom and Hana Bank eventually released their joint services** in Korea. Push and pull location-based marketing make sure you have always an incentive even if you came out without your paper coupons.

Note that in their latest TV ads, SKT are marketing Android a very cute way with a green robot dancing on "That's the way (uh uh uh uh) I like it", and that's likely to boost the brand's fun factor. The Android brand, I mean : the character bumps into SKT's dull "T" logo and roars at it... There was probably a smarter way of celebrating this encounter of the third kind.

* "Walmart Announces Acquisition of Digital Entertainment Provider, VUDU" (20100222)
** on this killer alliance, see "SK Telecom's Wild Hana Card" (20090612)