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The Academy Awards Show is coming up on Sunday and, with ten films nominated for Best Picture, chances are you haven’t seen all of them. If you want to catch up and watch the nominees before Sunday night’s shows, you should know about Redbox.
A few weeks ago, I invited a group of lovely ladies over to my house to watch a movie on a Friday night. I had emailed the invitation to my friends with a few choices of movies nominated for an Academy Award. By Thursday there was a consensus: The Social Network, winner of Best Picture at the Golden Globes, about the beginnings of Facebook. I was very happy that my friends chose a movie about tech (yea!), but I didn’t have time to order a dvd through Netflix and the movie isn’t available through Netflix streaming yet. It was available through Amazon Video On Demand on my Roku, but instead I chose to rent it on a dvd from Redbox.
Redbox is a company with vending machines that rent dvd’s in various convenient locations around town: grocery stores, Wal-Marts, pharmacies, etc. You go to the Redbox machine, select your movie, pay for it, and the dvd pops out of the Redbox for you to bring home and watch. The best part? It’s only $1 per night ($1.50 for Blu-ray dvd’s). You don’t have to bring it back to the Redbox you got it from, you can return it to any Redbox in the US. You don’t need to have an account, just a credit or debit card will get you a dvd. Very convenient.
To make your Redbox experience even better, go to the Redbox site and sign up for an account. You get a free dvd rental from Redbox for signing up and you can save your favorite Redbox locations to your account. Even if you don’t sign up for an account, go to their site to search for a movie or a Redbox location to see what’s available and where.
The Redbox App
But what if you’re out and about, running some errands and decide to rent The Social Network from Redbox, but don’t want to travel all around town trying to find a Redbox that has the DVD in stock? No problem, Redbox has an app for iPhone and Android that will help you search Redbox locations, either close to where you are, from your saved favorite locations, or by zip code. The Redbox app will even let you reserve the DVD to make sure it’s waiting for you when you arrive.
Imagine waiting in line at your local Redbox and hearing the people in front of you talk about renting The Social Network. You whip out your phone, launch the Redbox app and reserve the DVD for yourself. They get to the front of the line and see that The Social Network is sold out. The people in front of you choose Dora Explore the Earth and leave as you stride up to the machine and grab your reserved copy of The Social Network
That is so easy to fit into your life. When will the UK catch up? Hmm. I am a CPA & an MBA and there are lots of idle red phone boxes here. Let Redbox know I see a partnership on the horizon. Seriously . .
Hi Stephanie, Fantastic idea. I just emailed the company, as you suggested. Redbox is owned by Coinstar, which is already in the UK, so perhaps expansion is a possibility? I sent them a link to this blog and highlighted your comment. I love the idea of the British phone booths as the Redbox machines. I hope they do too. I will post if I hear back from them.
Hey, thanks.
And the clip was fun.
But other than that, how did you lovely ladies like the movie?
Everyone enjoyed The Social Network. The opinion was not uniform, however, on the merits of Facebook.