TalkTalk may've already renamed the video streaming service it acquired from Tesco last summer, but today marks something of a formal relaunch. The TalkTalk TV Store, formerly known as Blinkbox under Tesco's wing, still serves exactly the same purpos...
Of Tesco's three ailing digital Blinkbox services, its e-book store appeared to be the only one that would go gently into that good night. Eventually, it did, while Blinkbox Movies found a new owner in TalkTalk (which finally got 'round to rebranding...
A year ago Tesco abandoned its various Blinkbox businesses, which spanned TV, movies, music and ebooks, by either closing them down or selling them off to the highest bidder. The TV and movie streaming portion was acquired by TalkTalk and today, the...
Last week, it became apparent that Tesco wasn't gearing up to release a new low-cost Hudl tablet, as it had done in October in years past. When asked about the future of the Hudl brand, Tesco confirmed it had no current plans for a third-generation...
To celebrate the release of the fourth series of Game of Thrones on blinkbox, the company created this amusing video starring three pugs. It is titled The Pugs of Westeros, and stars Roxy, Blue and Bono playing dog versions of all of the main characters.
You’ll see Pug Joffrey Baratheon, Daenerys Targaryen, Eddard Stark and Jon Snow. Oddly, no Hound, which is a strange oversight. I was also disappointed that the couldn’t find a giant pug to play The Mountain, but I’m just a stickler for detail.
Pug fans will find the whole thing adorable. They need new house phrases now. A Lannister always chews his bone. Or flea dip is coming!
Star Trek Into Darkness is now available on Blinkbox’s UK-based video streaming service. How did they announce it? In an awesome way of course. They hired illusionist Scott Penrose to fool a crowd in a mall into believing they were seeing a working transporter, straight from the Starship Enterprise. The trick made it look like random people were being beamed straight across the room. Some of the bystanders were truly stunned by the illusion. It’s amazing what some people will believe. Everyone knows that you need a pad full of circles to teleport. That and a Scottish engineer. That’s the only way you can really transport stuff. Seriously, it’s a fun illusion, even if it is very obvious how they pulled it off.
They do some pretty great marketing at BlinkBox, don’t you think?
Tesco's grown from supermarket heavyweight to digital content contender thanks to its paid Blinkbox TV / movie and music streaming services, Clubcard TV ad-supported video platform and in-development e-book store. According to The Times, Tesco's about to get into the hardware business, too, with the launch of homegrown tablet sometime before Christmas. Details of the rumored device are non-existent, but it's said to come loaded with video, music and e-books, as well as apps for Tesco's online shopping, banking and Blinkbox services. It's a completely plausible next step for the company, and would mimic Amazon and Google's model of selling low-cost hardware, in part, to showcase their digital content offerings. Presumably, there's also scope for a 3G variant running on Tesco Mobile. We'd guess that if the retailer does release a tablet, it'll run Android and be extremely budget-friendly -- it'll have to be to go up against the new Nexus 7 and Amazon's Fire slates (let alone the rumored next-gen). As always, we've hit up Tesco for confirmation and comment, and will update you if we hear anything back.
Tesco's VOD service Blinkbox beat all other UK players to the punch when it hosted the second season of Game of Thrones well before the box-set launch, and it's doing the same with season three. It's only just ended, but from July 15th, the latest series will be available to download or stream in its entirety, and what's more, its arrival marks the first time HD content has been accessible on Blinkbox. You'll also be able to watch season three in SD, should you want to, and both previous seasons will get HD options when the third lands. Pricing isn't yet confirmed, but we'd expect the cost to be similar to that of season two, which was £1.79 (around $2.80) per episode, or £17.99 (around $28) for all ten. If you haven't seen Game of Thrones yet, and we highly recommend you do, you've got just over a month to prepare for the Blinkbox launch and subsequent marathon.
Anyone that calls the UK home will know that Tesco is a retail behemoth and, like many other supermarkets, has turned into a one-stop shop for everything from a pint of milk to the latest video game releases. It's grown into much more than a store, however, running an MVNO (although it sometimes gets confused about hardware) and the subscription-based video streaming service Blinkbox. Last year, Tesco let its wider digital ambitions be known, acquiring both a music streaming service and an e-book publisher. We've now been told these companies are the primordial soup from which its new online content emporiums will spawn later this year, known as Blinkboxmusic and Blinkboxbooks, respectively. And who'll be responsible for these new ventures? Well, they're somebodies -- Gavin Sathianathan, who was previously Head of Retail (EMEA) at Facebook, will head up the e-book offering, while Mark Bennett, formerly Head of Digital & Cross Channel at rival super-supermarket Sainsbury's, will run the musical endeavor. Tesco also announced that former Blinkbox exec Scott Deutrom is taking the reins of Clubcard TV, a new ad-supported video streaming service currently being tested. So, what's next for Tesco, apart from world domination? If industry trends are anything to go by, a mobile OS, most likely.
Brits who shop enough at Tesco to be on a first name basis with the clerks may soon have a reward that doesn't require leaving home. The UK retail chain is currently testing Clubcard TV, a web-based movie and TV streaming hub that would be a free perk of Clubcard membership. As it exists in beta form, the Blinkbox-derived service won't have Lovefilm or Netflix quaking in their boots: there's a limited slate of mostly family-oriented fare, and Tesco's notion of TV streaming involves the video output on a laptop. While neither is an issue as long as the trial is limited to staff, we hope there's a richer platform by the time Clubcard TV is open to anyone with a lot of grocery shopping in mind.
TalkTalk may've already renamed the video streaming service it acquired from Tesco last summer, but today marks something of a formal relaunch. The TalkTalk TV Store, formerly known as Blinkbox under Tesco's wing, still serves exactly the same purpos...
Of Tesco's three ailing digital Blinkbox services, its e-book store appeared to be the only one that would go gently into that good night. Eventually, it did, while Blinkbox Movies found a new owner in TalkTalk (which finally got 'round to rebranding...
A year ago Tesco abandoned its various Blinkbox businesses, which spanned TV, movies, music and ebooks, by either closing them down or selling them off to the highest bidder. The TV and movie streaming portion was acquired by TalkTalk and today, the...
Last week, it became apparent that Tesco wasn't gearing up to release a new low-cost Hudl tablet, as it had done in October in years past. When asked about the future of the Hudl brand, Tesco confirmed it had no current plans for a third-generation...
