Hacking NetFlix

Netflix Shipping DVDs from Some Distribution Centers Today

The latest update from the Netflix Community Blog notes that they've started shipping DVDs again from some locations:

By late this afternoon, we’d made enough progress on our system issues to begin shipping again from some of our distribution centers. We hope to bring the rest of our facilities back online overnight and be shipping from all of our distribution centers on Friday. But the issues we’ve faced over the last several days have been significant and there’s no guarantee at this point that our shipping operations will be fully restored by tomorrow. We’ll again be working throughout the night and will update you in the morning. Thanks for now and continued apologies.

Netflix is lucky that this happened during the Olympics -- I'm wondering how many customers noticed that there was a problem.

How Much Money is the Service Disruption Costing Netflix?

It's hard to measure exactly how much the shipping problem is costing Netflix, but it's big. Larry Dignan on ZDNet: "The tab is roughly $1.8 million to $3.6 million in revenue a day, according to Citi analyst Tony Wible."

The real cost depends on the length of the outage, customer defections, and how Netflix compensates customers for the service disruption. Last time they were down they issued a 5% credit, but this is a much longer outage, and they just upgraded many customers as part of the Netflix settlement.

What's Behind the Netflix DVD Shipping Problem?

While Netflix has only said that it's a technical glitch on the record, Valleywag reports that it could be a database upgrade problem, Netflix crash caused by botched Oracle upgrade.

How did Netflix end up with massive delivery delays? "Because of massive database corruption in their Oracle cluster caused by a botched upgrade," according to a tipster. But don't blame Oracle (or Microsoft), necessarily. The tipster believes Netflix's own database administrators who bungled the upgrade. Why not just roll back the system?

I believe it's more complicated than that — probably transactions that happened *after* the upgrade that they now need to reconcile manually.

It's just a rumor (and it's run on the notorious rumor site Valleywag) but it could be the reason Netflix is having so much trouble.

Netflix Shipping Problems Persist -- No Movies Shipped So Far Today

Netflix VP Andy Rendich posted the following update on the Netflix Community Blog earlier today:

Hi, it’s Andy again. Unfortunately, we continue to experience significant shipping issues as of Thursday morning. We were able to ship some DVDs from about half of our distribution centers yesterday but we haven’t yet been able to resume shipping this morning. Our engineers continue to work around the clock to restore normal operations. In the meantime, we’re notifying affected customers via personal email and we’ve posted a notice on the Netflix Web site. We’re as frustrated about this as you are and we once again apologize for the inconvenience. In any case, I’ll update you again later today. Thanks for your patience.

The Netflix website is still fully operational, and streaming movies are available, but Netflix spokesperson Steve Swasey told HackingNetflix that all 55 shipping centers are impacted by the shipping problems. He further said that they have not figured out how they will compensate members for the outage.

Netflix Posts Apology on Website about Delays & Credits

Netflix posted the following notice on the top of the website (you have to click to see the entire message):

IMPORTANT: Your DVD shipments might be delayed… We're sorry to report that we've been experiencing issues with our shipping system, so some of you are not receiving DVDs in a timely manner and some of you have not received emails letting you know we got a DVD back from you.

We apologize and we'll be automatically issuing credits to all of you whose shipments have been delayed. Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible and to provide a personalized email update to you if your DVD shipment was delayed.

We're sorry for any inconvenience we've caused you and thank you for your patience.

The Netflix Team

Netflix Movies Shipments Delayed on Tuesday - Update

Netflix suffered a glitch on Tuesday, and as a result no movies were shipped. Andy Rendich, a Netflix VP in charge of operations, posted the following notice on the Netflix Community Blog:

We received and were able to process incoming DVDs this morning but, due to a techonology issue, we weren't able to send emails confirming DVD receipt and we won’t ship any DVDs today (Tuesday). Our goal is to resume shipping tomorrow (Wednesday). Members who should have been shipped a DVD today will automatically receive a credit to their accounts, which we will communicate in personal emails. Our apologies for the delay.

Update: Andy Rendich posted an update, noting that they are still having technical issues:

Hi, it’s Andy Rendich back with an update. As of this morning, some (but not all) of our distribution centers are back up and shipping DVDs. Our goal is to resume normal shipping from all of our facilities as soon as possible, but we are still experiencing technical issues with our shipping systems. We apologize again for the inconvenience and continue to appreciate your understanding. We’ll keep you updated as there’s more to say. Thanks for now.

Post Movies To Your Queue From Your Phone With Kwiry

Kwiry.com, SMS-based reminder service, has released a neat little Netflix hack. Sign up for the free service, and when you want to add a movie to your queue just text "Netflix movie name" to 59479:

A few minutes later, the movie will appear in your queue:

If your phone supports it, you can also use the Netflix Mobile website to search for movies and manage your queue.

via TechCrunch.

Netflix Live! On Location Event Press & Photos

The LA Times covered the Netflix Live! On Location event featuring the Band from TV.

And love it they did. The Band From TV, a charity cover band created by actor Greg Grunberg ("Felicity," "Alias" and now "Heroes") thrilled the audience at a Netflix Live! On Location free concert and classic-TV screening Saturday.

That evening's version of the band was Grunberg on drums, fellow "Heroes" star Adrian Pasdar and "Desperate Housewives' " sultry plumber James Denton playing guitar, "House's" Jesse Spencer on electric violin and "Bachelor" Bob Guiney on vocals. "Desperate Housewives" star Teri Hatcher also made two appearances at the mike.

Grunberg's personal cause is the Pediatric Epilepsy Project, and prior to the show, he walked the red carpet with his 10-year-old son, Jake, who has epilepsy. Netflix made a donation to get the band to play. "The epilepsy community has been hit so hard for so long with a stigma, I just want to associate anything cool, anything out of the box with it," Grunberg said.

Flickr user "The Lackey" posted 49 photos from the event.

Vongo & ClickStar Go Dark

reports that Vongo, an early online movie subscription site, has been shut down to focus on licensing movie download services to other companies.

The first customer is Verizon, which launched a site called Starz Play in May. Becker said the Verizon deal wasn't exclusive, and that Starz was seeking other customers for similar "white-label" movie services. Verizon is offering an unlimited movie subscription for $5.99 a month, highlighting titles such as "Ratatouille" and "Dan in Real Life."

paidContent reports that Morgan Freeman's movie download service ClickStar also went dark a few months ago.

New Releases for August 12th, 2008

Click here for the full list of new releases this week (88).

Click here for the full list of new choices on Netflix's Watch Instantly (32).

Interesting titles include Smart People, The Secret, The Wire: Season 5, Felon, Watching the Detectives, Art of War 2: Betrayal, The Search for John Gissing, and How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer.