Subscribe to Future Releases Idea

David sent in an interesting idea: "I watch quite a few TV series via Netflix (Sopranos, Wire, Deadwood, etc). However, because the timing for the release of programs sometimes follows no rhyme or reason, I have to remember to check every now and then to see if there's new material available. It would be helpful if Netflix offered a option that allowed you to indicate that you want to put all future episodes of a series in your queue. No more trying to figure out when the next batch of Galactica's might be released; I'd be "subscribed" to Galactica, or whatever series interests me, and it would show up in my queue automatically."

Do you have any suggestions for Netflix?

Comments

[Sean]

I'd like this a lot. It would also be nice to have that work for actors and directors as well, so it would automatically add all Steven Spielberg movies to my queue for example.

[type-cast]

I wouldn't necessarily want to add any movie automatically. A Watch List would be better. Or email updates we could subscribe to. They still haven't answered suggestions to let us sort and filter reviews by various criteria. That'd be more useful to me. Amazon and IMDB already give you that functionality and it's easier to find good movies there than on the Netflix site.

[rambaldi47]

Netflix already has something like this-The Saved Section-It's under your queue and you can put movies there and when they are released they will go to the bottom of your queue.

[Old Timer Too]

There is actually a service (you have to sign up for it) that will automatically notify you about any action concerning any television or movie series, including when the next film or season will be released on DVD. I cannot remember the site name, but I've used it from time to time.

[eazyguy52]

"Netflix already has something like this-The Saved Section-It's under your queue and you can put movies there and when they are released they will go to the bottom of your queue."

But, you can't always put films in there either. For instance, before Mission: Impossible The First Season came out, Netflix didn't even have it listed until the day of it's release. Hawaii Five-O they didn't have listed, and in fact didn't have it to rent until five days after the release. They still have Revenge of the Nerds listed as part of a flipper disc with Revenge II, which you can put in your saved folder although it is OOP. Yet, the original film, Revenge of the Nerds has been re-released in a special edition but you can't rent it, because it's not available from Netflix. So go figure which makes the Saved thing only about half useful the way it is now.

[danb]

I think this would be great and a good business move by Netflix. Netflix has an interest in keeping queues full. A customer with nothing in their queue not only will not get shipments but they are less likely to remain a customer for long. If NF were to group series (shows or movies) then that would make it easy for a customer to subscribe. Then they'd simply need to make sure that duplicates wouldn't be sent out.

I think that this sort of thing could be even more promising than just that, though. As someone else said, what if we could subscribe to directors, actors, producers, or studios? What if they paid a critic to make a list. For that matter, a friend of mine watched the AFI top 100 list and he watched the top 200 from imdb. Simply subscribing to those would have not only saved him time but made him more likely to use NF to finish the task.

User lists could be used to automatically put movies in a person's queue. All for the purpose of keeping those queues full.

rambaldi> This isn't the same as the Saved section of your queue as there you can only add DVDs that exist. This would push DVDs onto the bottom of your queue as they become available. It would probably be a nice way of automatically adding things into the Saved section.

Television shows are going to have this problem a lot. You don't always know when a show will end and the DVD doesn't show up as available to be Saved if that season hasn't been announced yet.

[progrocktv]

"It would also be nice to have that work for actors and directors as well, so it would automatically add all Steven Spielberg movies to my queue for example. "

Sort of like the Season Pass TIVO does. A friend of mine in Australia has a service (can't remember the name) like TIVO that you can put together a "wish list" where it will search the TV schedules for shows, actors, etc. Netflix should do this!

[priv8pete]

I just wish that Netflix would bring back the purple friend icon. I really liked to know which movies my friends had seen while I was searching for movies to add to my queue.

While we're throwing out ideas for improvement, I'll like to see these:
-Average rating for myself and friends
-"Loved by your friend, recommended for you" suggestions
-3 movie recommendation engine (kinda like the one on the left of the home page, but you could choose the 3 movies you want recommendations from)

Hook me up Reed!

[type-cast]

"I cannot remember the site name, but I've used it from time to time."

I think you're talking about Video ETA. They send you email when the movie or show is out on DVD. For TV shows, you have to select the exact season, though. It won't notify you of another season after that unless you tell it to. Is that the site you remember?

[hawk5391]

I'd like a queue to buy used movies. There are some I would purchase (mostly children's animated movies for my little girl) but I can't check the sale page on a daily basis for them to be released.

[sueyu]

I agree! It would be great to have an automatic reminder when someone i like has a new release out.