Hacking NetFlix

LA Times on Blu-Ray & HD-DVD

The LA Times has an interesting story about the adoption of Blu-Ray & HD-DVD formats, Can Blu-ray Heat Up Hollywood Again?. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is quoted in the story:

"DVD sales will go down this year because consumers know about high definition but they don't know which format to buy," says Reed Hastings, chairman of Netflix, the online DVD rental powerhouse that has been growing at the expense of traditional video stores. "The problem with picking sides is that creates consumer anxiety, and so they'll just stop buying, period, or slow down their buying. The solution to getting the business growing is to have the studios support both formats. In video games, the two main formats are Xbox and PlayStation, and the market does well with two formats."

The story is a must-read if you're considering buying one of the new players.

via DVD Dossier.

Netflix Ranks #1 in "Fastest Internet Performance"

Internet Retailer reports that the Netflix website had the "fastest Internet performance" of the top 50 retail sites.

How fast a web shopper can access an e-commerce site is an important factor in gauging the overall performance of a web retailer.

But an equally important measure is internal performance, specifically how long its takes a shopper to use an internal search engine to find the product she is looking for and place the item into a shopping cart. Using a new series of measurements, Gomez Inc. notes that it takes a shopper an average of 13.63 seconds to enter a word or phrase into the site search box on a Top 50 retail site and then move the item into the shopping cart.

The report also notes that the Netflix search was available approximately 97.81% of the time.

Netflix Announces Previews

Netflix issued a press release for the new Previews feature (covered on HackingNetflix last week).

The new "Previews" section consolidates all of Netflix's movie trailers in one area on the Web site, just one click away from the member home page. Netflix's proprietary recommendation software chooses the trailers and the order in which they are shown based on individual members' movie rental and movie rating histories at Netflix. The previews run sequentially and without interruption.

"Netflix 'Previews' is like every viewer in a movie theater seeing a different series of trailers based on their personal tastes," said Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt. "But it's easier because you're watching the previews on your own computer screen, wherever you want, on your own time."

Tidbit from the release: There are currently 1,000 trailers online, and they hope to have as many as 10,000 by the end of the year.

Computer Problems

I'm traveling and having random rebooting problems with my MacBook, which is really disappointing since they just replaced the first one for overheating. I've owned 4 Powerbooks over the years, and this is the first time I've been disappointed with a computer from Apple.

In addition to the random rebooting, they do crash (despite the commercial).

New Releases for August 29th, 2006

Click here for the full list of new releases for this week (129).

Interesting movies include The Sentinel, Take the Lead, Friends With Money, Akeelah and the Bee, Water, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, Baghdad ER, and The Tick: Season 1.

Boston.com on Netflix Imitators

Boston.com takes a look at several companies using the Netflix business model, including Greencine, Peerflix, Siimply Audiobooks, and Gamefly (Netlfix Spawns a Mailbox Full of Imitators).

GreenCine focuses on "auteurist and experimental filmmakers" such as Hal Hartley, Caveh Zahedi, and Craig Baldwin, according to the company's head of business development, Jonathan Marlow. "We have over 10,000 films that Netflix doesn't carry," says Marlow. That includes a selection of adult movies offered by a subsidiary service called, appropriately, BlueCine.

Mark Cuban on Movie Downloads

Lamarr tipped me off to a great post by Mark Cuban, where he states that "Downloading as a retail alternative ain't gonna work."

The important business lesson for movie marketers is to make sure there is absolutely no confusion this Christmas or the next many Christmases that downloading a movie is an option to buying the store. YOU WILL KILL YOUR BUSINESS. You will upset customers. Upset retailers, and sell fewer movies. Thats usually not a good business opportunity.

I think most consumers will figure it out quickly that the hassle factor isnt worth it for buying movies for other people or more than 1 movie for yourself.. But I can assure you , smart studios will be all over making sure that retail is and remains the primary outlet and that movie downloads over the net is a niche business and nothing more for a long time to come

Movie Download Price War Already?

Video Business is reporting that a price war may be brewing in the emerging movie download business, with new releases selling for as little at $5. The story also includes a new Netflix-related term:

According to Akimbo co-founder Jim Funk, download services also must compete with consumer expectations set by packaged media, a phenomenon he calls the “Netflix bar.”

“Basically, if it’s not better than or easier or cheaper than Netflix, or really all three, then why switch?” Funk said.

Quickflix Sells Stake to Lachlan Murdoch

According to the Shanghai Daily, Rupert Murdoch's son Lachland bought a 10% stake in Quickflix, an Australian DVD-by-mail company.

Lachlan, 34, who quit News Corp last year, spent more than A$500,000 (US$380,000) on the stake. The purchase was made on Friday through his company Illyria Ltd, said Quickfix Managing Director Stephen Langsford.

Langsford, 44, said his Perth-based company aims to emulate California-based Netflix Inc, the world's largest provider of movie rentals, with a market value of US$1.26 billion and more than 5 million subscribers. Quickflix is valued at A$7 million and has almost 10,000 customers, Bloomberg News said.

Red Herring reports that the younger Murdoch might be working on a project to compete with his famous father: "The Netflix-clone is rumored to be working on a social networking arm to compete with MySpace and Australian network, RSVP."

Will Netflix Replace "The Video Store Guy?"

Ziv from DVD Ideas tipped me off to an interesting story about a local video store guy on the Forksplit blog, The Sh*t Filter (warning: cussing, etc.).

Billy knows, for example, that I have good taste in films, when I choose to. But he also knows how much vapid, worthless sh*t I rent. Any low-budget horror film that has a number in the title (Ginger Snaps 2; Leprechaun 4), for example. And he knows that I have an odd penchant for teen romance flicks (What A Girl Wants ; She's All That). Why I watch these, I have no idea. I watch too many to chalk it up to irony. Either I’m desperately attempting to experience the pink pom-pom girlhood I never had or I just really do have sh*tty taste in movies.

Billy doesn't judge, though. Whatever I may be renting.

While Netflix is great at recommending movies I might like, it's not so good about warning me about renting stupid flicks. Maybe this is something the programmers and Netflix should be working on...