AOL selling full digital movie downloads soon

AOL continues to re-invent itself from a stodgy and behind-the-times provider of slow Internet access into a current generation media company. This is a good thing for the company, as it would be going far, far away, if it had not started making changes in the last year or so.

Although AOL waited much longer than it should have, the company's energy is not going away, even with dastardly foibles, like leaking sensitive user search information. To its credit, the company did act quickly and the heads did roll.

Now, AOL has joined the digital content revolution -- insofar as online movie downloads -- and will be offering digital movie downloads from almost all the major movie studios. AOL said yesterday that it has cut deals with several movie studios -- Twentieth Century Fox Film, Universal Studios, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Bros. Entertainment. These agreements will serve to make full-length movie downloads and related content available at AOL's video site.

With online video being the new net sugar these days, AOL is getting into the game at the right time. Google Video, YouTube and others are making strides in self-made video markets, and Google Video and iTunes are selling full episodes of television sows for a fee. AOL looks to be selling actual full-length videos -- for a fee -- soon. The success number will be measured by the customer count.