music, videos, books,
good thing all those commodities being sold on the web constitute barriers to entry and differentiable products!
Booksellers Make Moves on
Video
By Lessley Anderson
Online video retailer MovieStreet Monday
announced it would create a cobranded
children's bookselling area with
Barnesandnoble.com on its KidFlix.com
childrens' video retail site. The area, which
will attempt to package related books and
videos together, is aimed at parents trying
to get their Disney-lovin' tykes hooked on
reading.
"If a child sees The Lion King video and
likes it, he's more likely to read The Lion
King book," said Jonathan Kaplan, CEO of
MovieStreet. "The association helps
children realize that reading can be fun.
Then they might read a book on lions, then
kings."
The Barnesandnoble.com partnership marks
the second cobranding deal for
MovieStreet – last week KidFlix became the
exclusive video retailer on iVillage, for an
undisclosed sum.
Barnesandnoble.com will be the second
major online bookseller to begin peddling
flix. Borders.com already offers videos, and
Amazon.com will launch its video store in
time for Christmas, though the exact date
is top secret. From Barnesandnoble.com's
standpoint, the KidFlix deal allows the
bookseller to test-drive a video retailer
partnership prior to soft-launching its own
video store, which company spokesman
Ben Boyd said was not far away.
Early last week Barnesandnoble.com
launched a ramped up kids' area similar to
those found on Amazon.com and
Borders.com, with nonbook items like music
and software for sale geared towards
children. A video link, Boyd said, is coming
soon.
thestandard.com |
