October 1, 2002
Yahoo! Ups the Ante in DVD Sales
By Beth Cox
Firing something of a shot across the bow of DVD rivals Amazon and Buy.com, Yahoo! launched an expanded DVD destination area on its site, complete with news and reviews, release schedules, Top Ten lists and, of course, links to its shopping pages.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based portal (Quote, Company Info, News) signed a licensing agreement with InterActual Technologies, owners of DVDfile.com, a provider of news and resources for consumers interested in DVDs. Financial arrangements were not disclosed.

InterActual also offers software and services that enhance DVD movie viewing on computers and next-generation DVD players, including features that integrate rich-media DVD content with the Internet.

The new Yahoo! DVD area is largely focused on DVD information and sales. Netflix (Quote, Company Info, News)is the online DVD rental king. It has a number of deals with DVD sales sites, including Yahoo!'s as well as a deal with BestBuy.com that redirects consumers interested in purchasing DVDs to that site.

There's just a ton of competition in online DVD sales, which is no doubt why Yahoo! has made it clear that it wants to offer what it calls "the most comprehensive collection of DVD-related information available on the Web."

E-commerce rival Amazon.com (Quote, Company Info, News) also has a DVD sales area, complete with its customer reviews. Buy.com also has a DVD area. And eBay's (Quote, Company Info, News) Half.com also sells DVDs. Half.com also has a redirect to Netflix for its customers who want to rent a DVD.

Blockbuster.com also has an online store, although it appears to be largely oriented toward rentals from the real world stores and sales of pre-viewed movies.

Yahoo! said its beefed up DVD area was designed as a one-stop resource for fans making decisions on which DVDs to buy.

Doug Hirsch, senior director of Yahoo! Movies & TV, said that the expansion of the DVD area means that the movie area now covers everything from pre-production to theatrical release to home entertainment release.