The Wal-Mart/Netflix deal is bigger than it may first appear, because it underscores an important new business reality. It’s billed as a joint promotional deal, but Wal-Mart is also closing its video rental business and turning it over to Netflix. In so doing, it is acknowledging that a smaller company can do it better (and cheaper) and likely make more money for Wal-Mart in the long run.

This new paradigm is important for media companies to consider, because local Web-based news entities are and will be springing up all over the place. The bigger-is-better meme doesn’t transfer to the level playing field that is the Web, and I think you’ll be seeing many more “partnerships” like this in the near future.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 19th, 2005 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.