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December 27, 2007

Wal-Mart Shuts Movie Download Service, Offers SEM Services Instead

Duncan Riley

30 comments »

walmartclosed.jpg
Wal-Mart shut its movie download service on December 21st, but until today no one noticed.

The service was launched in February with all the major film studios providing content; at the time Michael wrote that it was an extremely crowded and competitive space however “Wal-mart will bail out of markets that they can’t dominate,” he was right. Wal-Mart’s Video Download service joins the TechCrunch Deadpool.

In related (and bizarre) news Wal-Mart has instead begun to offer search engine marketing services. Sam’s Club Online Services entices customers with the pitch “Advertise your website in Google with a pay-per-click package through us.” Pic below via Karl Ribas who first spotted it.


samclubonline1.jpg

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. SEM, PPC, SEM Campaign, WalMart SEM, Professionally Managed PPC Campaign

    December 28th, 2007 at 7:28 am

  2. Profy.Com

    December 28th, 2007 at 7:50 am

Comments

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  1. marketinglane

    December 27th, 2007 at 7:16 pm

    Awesome, I can grab some dog food, toilet paper and stock up on some PPC all at the same time.

    Who did they outsource this too? I cant imagine them hiring a team to kick this effort off.

  2. facebookjunkie

    December 27th, 2007 at 7:18 pm

    Wait? I’m lost…Wal-Mart offering advertisements now? Through Google? Huh?

  3. EH

    December 27th, 2007 at 7:35 pm

    Not much of a “marketinglane” if you can’t read a webpage, are ya? Maybe we can get an Einstein around these parts to solve the mystery of who WM is outsourcing to. Any takers?

  4. Dan B

    December 27th, 2007 at 8:12 pm

    http://innuity.com/page/1ad5o/.....2005.html. C’mon now guys. This really isn’t that big of a deal at all…they’ve been offering web services to members for over two years.

  5. Jon

    December 27th, 2007 at 8:31 pm

    They must have read TC’s article the other day about iTunes coming out with a download service ;-)

    Jon

  6. LiveCrunch

    December 27th, 2007 at 8:45 pm

    Honestly I didn’t know about it, even tho wal-mart is one of my favorite grocery stores.

    Weird I haven’t wrote anything about them on my blog! :)

  7. Phil

    December 27th, 2007 at 10:15 pm

    SEM from Walmart? WTF?

  8. will

    December 27th, 2007 at 10:17 pm

    They been offering SEM for over 12 month now. . . do some real reporting please . . .

  9. David Mackey

    December 27th, 2007 at 10:30 pm

    Walmart has forayed into a number of different realms lately (e.g. music, social networking, movies) and shut down some…

  10. listen_to_blogs

    December 27th, 2007 at 11:06 pm

    Wow, I didn’t know Walmart offered SEM services. This is news to me!!!

  11. lawrence

    December 28th, 2007 at 12:11 am

    Who’d have seen this comming - lol?

    mass middle class america, walmart, offering SEO services

  12. Sunil

    December 28th, 2007 at 1:17 am

    Wow, I didn’t know Walmart offered SEM services.

  13. What's Hot Today.com

    December 28th, 2007 at 1:54 am

    I had no idea they offered SEM as well. I’m there all of the time

    http://www.whatshottoday.com

  14. fixing-computers

    December 28th, 2007 at 2:45 am

    Wal Mart offers SEM services? Hell i didn’t know that.

    http://www.fixing-computers.com

  15. Chris

    December 28th, 2007 at 2:56 am

    Walmart SEM will join the dead pool soon, it seems it is getting crowded there.

  16. Ultimate Diligence Blog (=^ v ^=)

    December 28th, 2007 at 3:06 am

    Thanks for sharing! ^o^

    hi, if you have time, go to my blog take a look, thx!!!!! ^o^

    The blog have many informations, hope to able to help you!!!^^

    Ultimate Diligence Blog (=^ v ^=)

    http://ultimatediligenceblog.blogspot.com/

  17. Kontra

    December 28th, 2007 at 4:05 am

    In a frenzy to catch up with Apple, the industry hasn’t learned much from the PlaysForSure debacle by watching Microsoft abandon its own DRM and introduce Zune with a new and incompatible system to compete directly against its erstwhile digital music “partners.” In another instance of mortgaging success to others’ willingness or ability to innovate, AOL recently moved its struggling video service to Amazon Unbox which in turn is based on Microsoft’s PlaysForSure.

    The irony here is that Wal-Mart relied on HP that relied on Microsoft and AOL relies on Amazon that relies on Microsoft which itself no longer relies on its own PlaysForSure. When a core component of a product or service depends on the rate of innovation of another party over which you have no control or influence, it’s time to rethink strategy. It’s also time to ask yourself, twice or thrice removed from core competency, should you really be in such a business?

    Strategic design risks (1): Wal-Mart’s foolhardy reliance on “partners”
    http://counternotions.com/2007.....art-video/

  18. esofthub

    December 28th, 2007 at 4:46 am

    Talk about wanting to be everything to everyone.

  19. Ballmer

    December 28th, 2007 at 5:05 am

    “Wal-Mart Shuts Movie Download Service” and nobody notices!

    fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

  20. 이정일

    December 28th, 2007 at 5:29 am

    월마트는 유통회사 아닌가요?
    참 별의 별 서비스 다하네…

  21. .rb

    December 28th, 2007 at 5:56 am

    @LiveCrunch:

    - You should just take down your site, you gotta know the C&D letter is on the way!

    heh ,.rb

    as for Walmart offering ppc services.. sounds radical for a grocery store to offer ppc services.

  22. stone

    December 28th, 2007 at 6:21 am

    Be efficient — add Walmart’s SEM service to the deadpool now, even though it’s just begun. They don’t have a prayer of being successful. I don’t think they buy their own keywords so how can they help other companies?

  23. Matt Ellsworth

    December 28th, 2007 at 6:30 am

    Thats crazy! Walmart + PPC = bad news.

  24. Jonny

    December 28th, 2007 at 6:43 am

    Wow! I didn’t realize — ah screw it! Just visit my damn blog!

  25. Micha

    December 28th, 2007 at 7:54 am

    Costco also offers PPC services to their members through ValuWeb but has done a much better job of promoting it to their customers than Sams Club does promoting the Innuity services. Neither of these companies are providing the services they are basically acting as an affiliate.

    This particular space of SEM services to small business is not a crowded space considering the growth potential in that arena. Yes there are 10,000 agencies ready to set up SEM services but 98% of their fees are out of reach to the small business owner who wants a turn key solution. Intuit is addressing this space as well leveraging their QuickBooks customers. My thought is that eventually Google will offer “vertical specific” programs for small businesses as they are doing with auto currently eventually taking out the middle man.

    ~Micha

    http://www.eboostconsulting.com

  26. Ed

    December 28th, 2007 at 8:19 am

    no more movies,

    how about music?

    http://mp3search.POPave.com

  27. Washington DC SEO

    December 28th, 2007 at 10:50 am

    Awesome, I’d love to pick up some PPC at Wal-Mart… Oh wait, I thought you meant “pills, porn, and casinos”.

  28. Kin Lane

    December 28th, 2007 at 1:55 pm

    Walmart is just sending traffic to Google Adwords and receiving a kickback for the adwords signups.

    I just setup the same campaign for a company I work for. They give you $100 for signing and gives the company who sent the traffic $100 for each signed up account.

    Its a pretty sweet deal actually. But they really don’t offer SEM services…just a flow through.

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