Wal-Mart challenges Netflix, iTunes

Somehow, I never really thought of Wal-Mart as the place to go to stream movies -- to get that 15 liter of Tide on sale for $10.99, sure, but movies, no. But in biggish news yesterday, the company folded its not-exactly-well-known VUDU streaming site into its very-well-known shopping site. This means that after I buy that Tide, I hop right over to the little icon for movies and rent "Source Code" for three bucks and 99 cents, or maybe the entire first (and was it only?) season of "Happy Endings."

Seems to me Wal-Mart has its gun sights set on iTunes, which charges $4.99 for same. Here's the new releases portion of the site, which -- per my very cursory look -- doesn't look nearly as deep or rich as iTunes, by several country miles. So it looks like Wal-Mart has its work cut out for it.