Cool Product: VUDU
For those of you who read me blog regularly, I want to give a plug to a great product. Before I begin, let me give you a little history. A friend of mine, Patrick Cosson was the Director of Marketing for Creative Labs, Inc. in the late 90’s, and I had the privilege of working for him. What a lot of people don’t realize is that Patrick spent a lot of time mentoring me, and I learned a lot from working under Patrick for 4 years. When Patrick left Creative Labs and began working at AOL, I went with him. Patrick was not only the best manager I’ve ever had, but he’s also a really great friend. Patrick and I lost contact for a while when I moved back to Dallas from San Francisco.
Last April, I was contacted by my dear friend Patrick. He has been working as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for a company called VUDU (formerly named Marquee) on an Internet Appliance. He couldn’t really tell me a lot of details because of non-disclosure, but asked if I would like to participate in a beta of their product. I signed all the necessary confidentiality paperwork, and received my product called a VUDU. It was an early beta, which was nothing more than a black box with a remote. All the magic happened, however, when you plugged it into your HD television and a network connection. The VUDU is an Internet appliance that delivers content through the internet — that’s the simple description. I’ve been on their beta program for about 6 months. They have been adding content and upgrading software; sometimes daily. The next phase of the beta program allowed me to obtain a production model of the VUDU from their store at vudu.com 
. The finished product is a very slick looking product, exactly what I would expect from a company that employs Patrick Cosson.
When I connected the new model, I noticed a free gift to all VUDU customers — an HD version of the Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy. The picture quality is amazing. The coolest thing of all is that you can browse a library of over 50,000 titles (more being added weekly), and begin watching them immediately. This is true Video On Demand. The pricing structure is pretty much dominated by the studios — rentals are $3.99 or less and you can buy movies from $9.99 and up. The HD content appears to be a little more expensive, but the quality is amazing.
I urge you to visit vudu.com , and consider picking one up for a Christmas gift.
Product Screen Shots
