There have been a number of online postal rental movie services in the UK from Screen Select to LOVEFiLM of which LOVEFiLM has eventually become the biggest, mainly by acquiring all the others, although in reality LOVEFiLM is actually Screen Select, when the merger of the two companies happened the Screen Select management team stayed in place with their systems but they thought the LOVEFiLM name was better.
Included in the many companies that offered online postal DVD rentals was Amazon, a service which was very good, much better than LOVEFiLM, but after only a couple of years LOVEFiLM bought the rental only service from Amazon, but Amazon became a major stakeholder in LOVEFiLM.
Now the whole story has gone full circle and Amazon will own the company outright, what I would like to see is the service integrated back into the Amazon website.
Amazon are making the right move, LOVEFiLM is now streaming on the PS3 and before long I can see it happening on many other devices, Apple TV maybe, Freeview HD boxes, and the killer, directly to TV's, Sony produce a lot of TV's and the relationship is already in play through the PS3.
It's a smart move for Amazon and one, which I am sure, will finally put the old high street movie rental stores into history, sorry Blockbuster we will remember you fondly but I think your time is up.
