Verizon’s announcement of its partnership with RedBox isn’t much of a surprise given last year’s formation of their Verizon Digital Media Services (VDMS) unit. At the Media Innovation Summit, Louisa Shipnuck explained VDMS and how it is an end-to-end content workflow and delivery solution; or as some would say content from camera to eyeball. Shipnuck is clear in her explanation that their solution is a wholesale offering, separate from and a potential enabler of competition to Verizon’s consumer offerings.
Given the 30 edge nodes and mirrored data centers they have in California and Virginia, VDMS is capable of delivering content in any form (e.g. games, books, video, music) to any device over any network for Redbox or any other partner (this white paper suggested Netflix as a potential partner for this type of service). She emphasizes that their solution is optimized for premium content, with hooks for advanced advertising, micro-transactions and advanced analytics. It would stand to reason that VDMS’ offering could provide Redbox with a way to leverage its brand with relatively low investment, while adding capability (e.g. ad-support) that Redbox’s competition doesn’t have today.
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