Walmart | Firegeezer

Have you heard of VUDU before? It’s a video download/streaming service that primarily offers movies to download to your television set. I had never heard of them (or if I had, I’ve forgotten) until last week when they hit the news. According to their WEBSITE (HERE) they have literally thousands of movie titles available and they are offered the same day that the DVD of the flick is released. There is no monthly subscription or contract required, you only pay for what you watch when you order it. And they say that they already have 2,000 HD titles in their library along with the tens of thousands of standard def. titles.

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How do you download them? It arrives over your internet connection (you are required to have a broadband connection) and arrives in a receiver that looks like a cable-tv box. You do have a 1-time charge of about $140 to purchase the box, but it stores all the movies that you have downloaded so that you can view them repeatedly if you choose to. LG Electronics and Mitsubishi are building tv sets now that have the VUDU mechanics already installed. They make their money by selling the movies, either as a download file to keep, or as a live-streaming video-on-demand service. To sum it up, it’s “Bye-bye, Blockbuster” and “Nice knowin’ ya’ Netflix.”

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Why was VUDU in the news last week, you ask? It’s because Walmart dropped a bombshell on the movie-rental industry by announcing that they have purchased VUDU for an undisclosed sum with the deal expected to be closed in the upcoming weeks. While there are several streaming and download services already, the clout that Walmart has in the retail industry already will propel VUDU onto to the top of the heap. Just as a for-instance, Walmart sells such a large percentage of television sets now that they can potentially “encourage” more manufacturers to include the VUDU system in their new receivers.

This will also have an impact on the cable-tv operators because now there will be no need for a customer to pay a monthly surcharge for movie channels such as Starz and HBO. We’re talking big bucks here. There is a lot of news, information and speculation out there on this sea change in digital entertainment delivery, so if you are interested in reading more about it, go to your preferred search engine and enter: Walmart Vudu and you will get plenty of sites to check out. If anybody has already used VUDU, post a Comment and let us know what you think about it, or how it works.

First though, we have to check out this equipment and get ready for the day. I’ll go get a pot of coffee started then we’ll meet back in the day room in a little while.

Around the end of the year, people start planning their next-year’s vacation so that they can submit their leave requests in January. But apparently there are more and more people starting to plan a little farther ahead than that.

Finally bringing some financial sense to the mortuary market, Walmart has begun selling caskets and urns through their online catalogue. Apparently, rival retailer Costco has started selling caskets in their stores, but so far Walmart is limiting their offerings online only. Last week they began by listing 15 models of caskets and literally dozens of funerary urns on their website, most of them undercutting the funeral homes’ prices by as much as $1,000.

Wal Mart Caskets

According to their webpage, you could be
the first to review this product.

They are offering delivery within 48 hours, but curiously there is a no-return policy. The prices on all the caskets, except one deluxe model, are less than $2,000. Reprtedly, Federal law requires funeral homes to accept third-party caskets as part of their services. Walmart says that they will be expanding their offerings to include as many as two dozen caskets and up to 200 other products including pet urns and memorial jewelry.

At first glance this seems to be a bizarre sales ploy, but I think it’s really a brilliant bit of planning. Think back a moment and you’ll recall a lot of hoopla in the past few years about the “aging population” as the Boomer generation, which is the largest current demographic group, reaches retirement age and starts buying anti-cholesterol medicine in greater quantities. A lot of businesses and service industries are making similar projections for their businesses and beginning to gear up for a different kind of demand for their products.

So what about your Fire and EMS services? You know all this is coming, but have you started to actually do anything to meet this growing kind of demand? It’s going to be more than just an increase in heart attack calls. There will be an increase in group housing for the aged, more people driving like they do down in Florida while you’re responding to a call, and some unusual public service requests. You can let your imagination run loose on this one. But it’s a good idea to at least start implementing some policies that will allow you to get ready for this increased focus on related problems. Most governmental agencies are reactive rather than pro-active and they tend to lag behind when it comes to that sort of planning. So perhaps you can steer your department or squad onto a path to get ready for it. Once again, Walmart leads the way.

Now let’s follow the path to the check sheets and get this equipment checked out. I’ll make sure that there’s plenty of coffee going. See you in the day room in a little while.

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