Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) was early to the video download service, beginning to offer movies over a year ago. Now that service has been shut down, according to Reuters. The company says that Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) is no longer offering the technology needed to run the operation, but that seems pretty thin.

Wal-Mart probably figured out that having a lot of customers online does not translate into successfully offering them new services. Most online research numbers show walmart.com as one of the top two or three e-commerce sites. But Wal-Mart customers are often not affluent and may not be ideal targets for a video download operation.

There is also the question of competition. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has its iTunes service, which is growing. Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) has another, similar operation, and there are a dozen others.

People may buy clothes and household goods from a retail website, but that does not mean that the customers can be moved to digital downloads. "Would you like a movie with that shirt?" does not necessarily work.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Time Warner closed at $16.42, down .01 at end of regular trading, but up .08 in after hours trading. The stock ended the week exactly where it began: $16.50.

This flat result came despite the fact that Time Warner announced several important strategies for the immediate future of AOL Video as a premier video search and view destination. Viewers will be able to access a virtually limitless array of amateur videos and video clips, as well as hundreds of hours of TV programming on demand. Additionally, AOL will offer downloadable movies on demand from 20th Century Fox, Sony, NBC Universal, and Time Warner's own Warner Brothers. Time Warner beat both Apple Computer Inc. and Amazon.com to the punch for video accessibility. Yet investors continue to flame Time Warne's efforts while Apple's lithium-ion battery powered notebooks are the fire hazard.

Time Warner unit CNN announced that on the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it will make available free of charge replays of its coverage of events on September 11, 2001. CNN Pipeline will provide live coverage of memorial services at Ground Zero in NYC and DC. Viewers can also access the replay feed of 9/11/2001 from 8:30 A.M. until midnight. For those still unable to watch events of 9/11/2001, CNN will also have a number of interactive but less graphic elements on its site.

Paramount Picture's recent decision to cut loose Tom Cruise may be just the opening salvo in an upcoming battle between Hollywood studios and high-priced, high maintenance celebs. While overall movie receipt totals for this summer were up, the increase was driven by higher ticket prices, not increased attendance. Moviegoers are increasingly likely to be videoviewers instead. More than 1 million viewers have downloaded the video clip of a young man mixing Diet Coke with a mint and spewing the resulting concoction out of his mouth. Even more odd, 400,000 viewers have downloaded a clip of rabbits munching on vegetation.

Memo to viewers: GET LIVES! Seeing this image on the wall, AOL's strategy to become a premier video viewing destination begins to make a great deal of sense.

Movie production costs continue to skyrocket, with no assurance that money spent on production will be recouped at the theatres. By contrast, the number of no or low-cost video and video clips grows exponentially every week. As well, hundreds of hours of TV programming and thousands of movie titles are added to an increasing number of video-on-demand channels. With its recent purchase of GameDaily, Userplane and Truevo, AOL Video is moving to capture audience eyeballs. AOL also concluded a deal to distribute movie titles from 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures and Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Group.

Currently, AOL's business model allows viewers to access some ad-supported TV programming on demand free of charge. AOL plans to charge $9.99-$19.99 per movie download. For this fee, howwver, viewers will NOT own the movie. Purchasers may not burn the movie onto a DVD, though the movie may be played repeatedly over a period of days on several different Windows-supported devices. It remains to be seen whether consumers wil pay this fee for short-term ownership only.

In its never-ending quest to capture eyeballs, Time Warner is going for laughs. DCComics, home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, has teamed up with Warner Books to cross promote a pre-publication version of Brad Meltzer's The Book of Fate, a graphic novel thriller chocked full of American historical tidbits.

Also on a comedic note, Turner Broadcasting System announced it will distribute two "very funny broadband destinations: veryfunnyads.com and Laugh Lab." Veryfunnyads.com will be the world's largest online collection of humorous commercials. Viewers will be able to email links to their favorite commercials. Veryfunnyads.com will offer periodic updates to its collection. This just could replace fantasy football leagues as many people's favorite work-time activity. Veryfunnyads.com launched today via a one-hour World's Funniest Commercials show on TBS. Laugh Lab will feature original materials from well known stand-ups, as well as encore performances of comedy materials already distributed by TBS. Viewers will be able to customize their choice of comedy videos.

Using the capabilities provided by its purchase of Truveo, Time Warner subsidiary AOL aims to be the premier web video site. AOL Video will provide online video search capabilities and will also carry thousands of hours of programming by partnering and sharing revenue with Arts and Entertainment network, the History Channel, Nickelodeon and MTV channels. The initial 30,000 videos also include on-demand news segments from ABD, CNN and Reuters. AOL plans to increase its sale of video ads to over $1 billion in the next few years as additional programming, both original and encore performances, is put on the Web. TV ad marketing is already a $60 billion per year industry.