Netflix is dead « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger (full article at link)

Netflix is dead « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger:

As an example over there I dropped in on Verisign’s booth. It’s very easy to miss what they are now shipping: a Netflix killer.

Here’s what they were demoing: a peer-to-peer system for selling and distributing high-def videos. It really rocks. I downloaded a movie while there in the booth and the quality wasn’t distinguishable from the HD-DVD’s I get from Netflix.

It made me realize why would any of us go into a Blockbuster in the future, or wait two days for a DVD to show up from Netflix.

There are several companies that are trying to do the same thing as Verisign — distribute videos over P2P networks to reduce distribution cost and improve time to get a movie to you.

The problem is that those networks require users to load some software on their machines. Anytime I hear that I realize that getting people to do that is going to be difficult.

But on Monday Verisign announced a deal with Adobe who’ll distribute their P2P infrastructure along with the next version of the Flash player. That’ll get it into tons of homes nearly overnight.

Translation: Netflix and Blockbuster have a LOT to be worried about.