Hacking NetFlix

Netflix Settlement Judge Changes Mind

The New York Sun is reporting that the judge, Thomas Mellon Jr., has decided not to decrease the fees awarded to the lawyers in the Netflix class action lawsuit.

Judge Thomas Mellon Jr. signaled the change after the company said it expects the number of customers seeking to temporarily upgrade their subscriptions under the settlement to jump to 655,000, more than double the tally of those currently signed up.

Under the settlement, current customers of Netflix would be eligible to get an extra movie for a month, while former customers would receive a month's free service, including up to three movies at a time.

Hollywood Reporter Interviews Netflix's Ted Sarandos

Hollywood Reporter has an interview with Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos that is full of great info about Netflix:

There are more female subscribers than male now (53% to 47%). "Women look for convenience, selection and value. It's not unusual for women to make the entertainment selection in the household."

96% of Netflix subscribers watch movies on a TV (I watch some on my notebook computer on the train).

Netflix carries 900 Bollywood titles.

The top 3 rentals are Mystic River, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and Crash (this is different than what the web site shows).

Less than 30% of Netflix's daily shipments are new releases, compared to 80% at Blockbuster.

Netflix plans to buy about 100 small films a year, like Cowboy del Amor.

Thanks to Joe and Al for sending this in.

Fast Company's Advice for Netflix

Fast Company (they ran a cover story on Netflix last October) has some advice for Apple and Netflix about how to treat your best customers:

A strategy that punishes one's most loyal consumers is hardly sustainable. Wal-Mart's John Fleming certainly sees it that way: "Our challenge is managing our size while staying close to the customers," he told the HUB. "It's about keeping that relationship with the customer in the local communities and cultivating that." Those are words to live by, whether or not Wal-Mart itself actually lives up to them.

At the very least, both Apple and Netflix are undermining their own "word-of-mouth" marketing strategies. It is downright weird that these companies, both of which are built on the kind of "evangelism" that most marketers would kill to have, seem oblivious to the fact that buzz can cut both ways. It feels like arrogance, which is not exactly a fundamental principle of good marketing.

via digg.

The Lure of Cheap Cable TV (with HD)

Lamarr, a frequent commenter on this site, has dropped Netflix for cable tv:

I wanted to tell you that I have finally cancelled my Netflix subscription in favor of cable. My cable provider provided a package that has all all the movie channels except the HBO's for 19.99/month. It's a great deal, and with this package, On Demand, a PVR box, and HDTV, it definitely outweighs my Netflix subscription. Movies are going to the movie channels faster and faster from DVD, so if I just exercise some patience I'll be able to see it. Plus, a lot of TV shows have taken up my time from DVD watching. So nothing against Netflix, but I had to do the more cost efficient option.

Basic cable in my area is more than $50 per month, but if they offered this deal in your area would you drop Netflix?

Salon on Movie Critics

Salon takes an interesting look at the world of film critics, as seen in the book American Movie Critics: From the Silents Until Now, by Philip Lopate.

Film critics are first and foremost writers -- the craft is, as Lopate puts it, "the operation of one art form (literature) on another (the movies)." If you can't write an interesting or amusing essay on pretty much any piece of crap committed to celluloid, you're out of your depth. Although I'm primarily a literary critic, I've done stints as a film reviewer for weekly and daily newspapers and I'm here to tell you that as a job, film criticism has only one advantage over reviewing books: it's a lot less time-consuming. (It takes about two hours to watch most films and much longer to read most books.)

Thanks to Joe for sending this in.

GameZnFlix Acquires Rights to 170 TV Shows

GameZnFlix acquired the rights to 170 tv shows for the GnF Entertainment Netfwork, which is broadcasting to more than 2 million satellite dished in North America.

"This purchase of 170 shows is the beginning of our plan to obtain rights to all kinds of content. By purchasing these shows and possibly acquiring more, we hope to ensure that we can offer titles to our customers via many different means of distribution," John Fleming, CEO of GameZnFlix, Inc. "This represents another step towards meeting one of the company's goals of providing movies and games through video-on-demand or, potentially, any other media."

Warner Home Video Going Direct-to-DVD

Variety is reporting that Warner Home Video has created a new venture called Raw Feed to create movies for direct-to-DVD release:

"The creation of content is evolving beyond just the traditional unspooling of film in a theater," Krantz said. "There are opportunities in direct-to-video, mobile phones and the Internet to speak to markets starved for exciting concepts." Krantz said he and his partners are convinced WHV has the marketing clout to brand Raw Feed product and keep it from falling into the void as many DVD releases do.

Thanks to Lief for sending this in.

Movies From Distant Shipping Centers?

Tommy writes:

Just curious, have you heard anything about the Chattanooga, TN hub? Five of my last six movies come with a Duluth, Georgia return address. I realize if one hub is low on stock, they'll send from another (my favorite was getting a disk with a Honolulu return envelope). But I've never gotten a lot of movies in a short period of time from a hub other than the one in Chattanooga.

I'm just wondering if they've closed that hub, or if I'm just getting throttled, somehow. So far, it seems to increases my wait time a day on the return, if I have to send Georgia. It bugs me if I'm getting throttled, since the last couple of months have had me using just 8 or 10 movies a month on a 4-out plan.

Is anyone else in Tennessee area still getting movies from Chattanooga?

Take a look at your current batch of Netflix rentals. Where do you live and what are the return addresses?

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on Motley Fool Radio

The Motley Fool Radio Show on NPR has recorded an interview with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

Tidbits from the show:

Hastings says that Netflix has more than 250,000 copies of the Oscar winner Crash.

Netflix determines the number of copies of a movie to order using formulas similar to picking stocks. They have an incredible amount of data and can forecast how many copies to order based on the success of similar movies, among other factors.

Hastings on throttling: "I'm not sure what the term "throttling means, per se." He goes on to explain how they allocate movies based on customer usage if they have a limited number of copies.

He doesn't believe that video stores will disappear anytime soon, and notes that Blockbuster is about the size of Google.

Watching full-length movies on Netflix will be similar to watching a movie trailer.

The Netflix & TiVo partnership is on hold due to the lack of available releases from the studios

More than 500,000 copies of Born into Brothels have been rented through Netflix.

He notes that despite the success of music download sites, 90% of all music is still purchased on CD. He believes that DVD has a long way to go before downloading makes the DVD format obsolete.

Hastings on iTunes movie downloads: He watches Lost and Desperate Housewives on iTunes.

Netflix & eHarmony

Natalie thinks that "Netflix and eHarmony should get together and set up a dating service where the sole criteria is movie ratings. They have a built in client base! I wouldn't use the service myself, since I am married, but I think it would be a much more accurate "personality profile" to know if the person you were considering dating liked Roadhouse better than Oldboy. These are the things you really need to know."