Blockbuster Online is Offline For Entire Day

MG Siegler notes today that Blockbuster Online may soon need to change the name on their website to something that indicates the truth, as their site has been offline for quite some time. Any visits to yield currently the message:


This isn't the sort of frequent, short outage we Twitter users have come to know and love expect. It has been down so long that Reuters is even reporting on the "plethora of 'system' problems" experienced over at Blockbuster that led them to eventually bring down the site. Looks like the "changes are coming" code words actually mean "making sure our junk works" this time around.

Given the recent changes to Blockbuster's pricing plans and the advent of new competing rental offerings from Apple, Netflix and Amazon, the website might end up being the least of their concerns (or perhaps the website was the least of their concerns, leading to its crash). Even more telling is that despite being one of the 'premier' online movie rental outfits, none of us in the tech blogosphere (aside from MG Siegler) noticed.

Somehow, despite the service having been down since 9:30 this morning, shares of Blockbuster closed up 8 cents on the NYSE.