Hacking NetFlix

Slate Wonders What Movie You Kept The Longest

Slate is asking readers to tell them what movie they've kept the longest, Land of No Return.

It happens to all Netflix subscribers eventually. Your buddy the film buff drags you to a revival of Antonioni's L'Avventura. To your surprise, you find yourself rapt. Upon returning home, you log in to your Netflix account and move La Notte, the second film in Antonioni's ennui trilogy, to the top of your queue. It arrives a few days later, just as L'Avventura's spell is starting to wear off. You watch Anchorman instead. You totally still want to see La Notte … but now you've mailed Anchorman back and here is Ghost Rider—starring Nic Cage! La Notte can wait. And it does. For weeks. You're never quite in the mood to watch it, but you can't quite bring yourself to return it, either.

Send your story to dvdextras@gmail.com by next Tuesday at 5pm ET.

I asked this question in 2005, and the responses were interesting (18 months, 249 days, etc.).

Netflix Explains The Shipping Delay

Mike Ozier, head of IT operations for Netflix, explains what caused the 3 day service disruption on the Netflix Community Blog:

Now that things are back to normal following last week’s shipping outage, I’d like to shed some light about what happened, why, and what we’re doing about it. On Monday, 8/11, our monitors flagged a database corruption event in our shipping system. Over the course of the day, we began experiencing similar problems in peripheral databases until our shipping system went down. It was going to be a long night.

We suspected hardware and moved the shipping system to an isolated environment, gradually getting DVD shipments moving again. Eventually the system was repaired and shipping returned to normal conditions. With some great forensic help from our vendors, root cause was identified as a key faulty hardware component. It definitively caused the problem yet reported no detectable errors. We’ve taken steps to fortify our shipping system with the acquisition of additional equipment and worked with our vendors to verify we’re in good shape elsewhere.

Hope this was helpful and thanks for your patience.

Netflix Still Having Technical Problems?

Is Netflix still having technical problems? EJ's movies were delayed today, and he received the following notice from Netflix:

Tony is having trouble with the Netflix website:

I can't do anything on their site. It is dog slow and I can't even get to my queue to update what I will be getting next. It would be nice to know what in the world is going on.

Ken writes about problems he's having on 4 different computers:

I have been having a problem with the Netflix site hijacking my browser for 15-30 seconds after clicking on any of the navigation buttons. Also, when scrolling or highlighting a movie, there is a 1-4 second delay. I have tried this on 4 different computers using IE 7 and get the same results. Tech support says the problem doesn't exist.

Is anyone else having trouble?

Netflix & Blockbuster Website Traffic Compared

ClusterStock took a look at Netflix & Blockbuster website traffic.

According to compete.com, traffic in July 2008 is up over 25% for netflix.com from the previous July, but has crashed for blockbuster.com, down almost 50% for the same 12-month period.

In addition to the positive traffic trends for Netflix, Piper also believes that NFLX's own 2009 estimates are based on conservative assumptions. Therefore, the firm sees signficant upside potential for the stock.

The following Compete chart compares Netflix & Blockbuster traffic over the past year:

India's DVD Rental Firm Seventymm Raises $12 Million

paidContent reports that Indian DVD rental company Seventymm has raised an additional $12 million.

The funding activity in India in digital media is picking up fast: Bangalore-based online DVD rental company Seventymm has received $12.5 million (Rs 50 crore) from NEA Indo US Ventures. This will be the third round of funding for Seventymm, which now has a total capital of around $22 million. While DFJ with ePlanet Ventures had invested $2 million in 2005, the rest was raised from Matrix Partners in 2006.. Last year Seventymm had acquired Delhi-based online DVD rental firm Madhouse, which had received angel investment of $228,000.

Seventymm uses couriers to deliver and pickup the movies, and offers more than 18,000 titles in 14 languages.

New Releases for August 26th, 2008

Click here for the full list of new releases this week (189).

Interesting titles include August, What Happens in Vegas, Where in the World is Osama Bin Ladin?, Heroes: Season 2, Son of Rambow, A/k/a Tommy Chong, The Untouchables: Season 2: Vol. 2, The Shield: Season 6, Entourage: Season 4, Dirty Jobs: Collection 3, American Experience: George H.W. Bush, and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning.

Did You Get Movies on Saturday? The Aftermath of the 3-Day Netflix Service Disruption

Netflix posted a final update about the shipping problems:

It’s been a long and challenging week, but it ends on a positive note. Today we shipped from all 55 Netflix distribution centers across the U.S. More than three million DVDs went into the mail, including roughly 95 percent of orders backlogged from Tuesday through Thursday. And the balance of backlogged orders will mail on Saturday. Importantly, all of us at Netflix want to offer special thanks to the scores of members who called, emailed and posted words of support at a tough and humbling moment for our company. Apologies to all once again and thanks for hanging in there with us.

Brent writes that he didn't get his movies delivered on Saturday -- did you get yours?

I noticed a bonus rental in my account, and I'm wondering if they're sending them out to all customers. Did anyone else get one?

Consumerist posted an interesting story, Netflix Screws Up, Makes Thousands Of Customers Happy?

We've had no less than 20 people email us to congratulate Netflix for apologizing after their shipping system experienced some delays.

What's you opinion on how Netflix handled the 3-day service outage? Was the 15% credit the right amount? Did they do a good job of communicating with customers? What could they have done better?

HackingNetflix: Vacation Time

Posting will be very light this week, as I'm going to spend some quality time with my family. I'll be outside most of the week (with lots of sunblock), but I'll still be checking e-mail from time to time.

New Releases for August 19th, 2008

Click here for the full list of new releases this week (87).

Interesting titles include Recount, Street Kings, Dexter: Season 2, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Season 1, Gossip Girl: Season 1, The Life Before Her Eyes, Dana Carvey: Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies, The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior, Fighting With Anger (Willie Nelson, acting), An American Crime, Orson Welles' Don Quixote, My Faraway Bride, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and for the younger readers: Camp Rock and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour.

Netflix Shipping Problems Fixed -- Customer to Get 15% Credit

Netflix has fixed the shipping problems that plagued the company for the past 3 days, and will be issuing a 15% credit to customers. The following update was posted to the Netflix Community Blog:

Let’s get right to it. This morning, we’re happy to report that all of our shipping centers are resuming normal operations after experiencing three days of significant issues. Throughout the night and as we post this update, our distribution centers are processing customer orders and getting them into the mail. If a member should have been shipped a disc Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, with rare exception it will ship today (Friday). As a result, millions of our members will receive DVDs on Saturday, in time (we hope) for some weekend movie enjoyment. But we know that’s not enough. The service interruption we experienced this week inconvenienced many of our members and put us in the awful position of disappointing people. So we’re taking added measures. For all members whose shipments have been delayed, we’ll be automatically applying a 15% credit to their next billing statement. Or, for new members whose first shipments have been delayed, we’ll automatically extend their free trial by a week. Rest assured that we are taking aggressive steps to fully understand the root cause of this week’s problems and safeguard against issues like these in the future. For now, we’re just happy to be able to get back to doing what we love most – delighting our customers. Again, most sincere apologies and thanks for your understanding.