Where Are the New Releases?

Now that Netflix has released their RSS feeds (http://www.netflix.com/RSSFeeds?lnkctr=hnRSS), do you still want me to post my list of new releases? Netflix now offers a RSS feed that lists the new releases each week.

My list was always much shorter than the actual list since I didn't have access to the Netflix database of DVD release dates. I searched multiple sources of release dates to compile the list, and then I checked this against the listing on Netflix, one at a time, to make sure the release date was accurate (in a few cases each month it was not). I'm sure I could have written a Perl script to do parts of it, but it mostly research work.

Unless I hear a lot of requests, I'm going to stop compiling the list and just link to the Netflix new release RSS feed. Comments? Suggestions? Ideas?

Comments

[Jon Abad]

I'd personally prefer if you didn't spend your time doing all that research by hand and instead found other cool tidbits of knowledge.
But then I'm all about RSS.

[Ask Bjørn Hansen]

Your list seemed more valuable exactly because it wasn't complete! (and thus didn't have a lot of the "cruft"). :-)

How about posting a filtered version of the RSS feed? Then we get your editorial input and you get less work.

In any case, thanks for having put in all the work making the lists in the past!

- ask

[Carl Cravens]

Your new-releases list has been a valuable resource in the past (as if I need more movies to watch... the 500-discs mark looms near), but considering that the RSS feed is complete, and it contains short descriptions, your efforts now seem mostly redundant. And since it's a manual effort, I agree with the previous poster, spend your time on something more productive. (Though Netflix dropped the ball in one area... they don't list cast, director, etc. I hope they'll correct that.)

Thanks for producing the weekly list during the time Netflix was behind the curve.

[Jimmy Flowers]

Hmmm... I like your lists, but would be willing to try the RSS feed. Two things:

1) Can you help an RSS newbie by giving me a website or something to check out to set-up RSS?

2) Would you still post when the feed is updated? Unless it's updated daily of course.

: )

[Alex]

For all my web knowledge RSS Feeds are still a bit too geeky for me. Maybe a "best of" each week?

[fMiku Araman]

Try http://www.bloglines.com/ to read RSS feeds.

[Anthony]

I found your list invaluable and would love to see it continue, but I also have to admit I have never used RSS feeds until today. I might be able to get used to it. Could you explain what advantages an RSS feed has. Other than new releases it appears to me to be the same as surfing the site for info?

Thanks for all the hard work you've put in.

Someday they'll erect a monument (or something).

For now, I'm wondering why netflix itself doesn't do this, or pay you for your work (or something).

URL email: "-"

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["-"]

Thanks for all the hard work you've put in.

Someday they'll erect a monument (or something).

For now, I'm wondering why netflix itself doesn't do this, or pay you for your work (or something).

URL email: "-"

"-"

[Anonymous coward]

You might consider an automated conversion from the RSS feed into a posting here. That way folks who don't want to set up an RSS reader can still peruse the info.

[Fred]

I've not used RSS so your list was a bright point of normally tired Mondays.

[Laney]

Post them!!! :-)

[T. Bradley Dean]

Although extremly helpful in the past, your list is not needed now.

However, I do not think the NetFlix feeds would have come about without your site. We all owe you a great deal of thanks.

hey thats really cool, as i have never used RSS or blogging before, i liked using the bloglines to set up the feed, will it automatically update each week?

[Mark Gisleson]

Well, I do RSS and immediately set up some feeds when you posted that, so it's fine by me.

Guess it depends on how many non-RSS folks you have, and how obligated you feel.

But thanks a lot for the work you did, and I still check your blog everytime the RSS feed updates!

[brian w]

I am in favor of you continuing to keep the list. What happens if someone's away for a week or two? The RSS feed quickly pushes old data out and it then vanishes. Your lists are archived basically in perpetuity.

Maybe you can come up with a way to make your list less time-intensive to compile now that the feeds are available. Then we get the best of both worlds.

YES! We want the new release updates on this site! It's so much easier than going to Netflix and seeing *ALL* of them.

I can certainly appreciate the effort required, and for that I'm grateful, but I would love to see your New Releases list continue. It was (hopefully is) a user-friendly and skillfully-filtered way of treading through Netflix's weekly avalanche of new stuff.

[Rob Cannon]

A big hearty thanks for your efforts in the past. The RSS feed could be better (too much junk), but I don't see it as worth your effort to try to improve upon it.

[Edward]

What the hell is RSS? When I click on the link, all I get is something that looks like unparsed HTML code.

[Carl Cravens]

Bloglines.com (a web-based RSS/Atom news aggregator) automatically checks the feeds on a regular basis and indicates when new material is available. It doesn't discard old material... if you're on vacation for a couple weeks, you'll come back to find all the updates available in your Bloglines. If you use one of the Bloglines notifiers, you'll get a little pop-up or similar telling you when something new has arrived, so you don't even have to go out and check it regularly.

In the beginning, I was kind of skeptical of blogs, becuase I like "push" technology. I don't like going through a list of web sites every day, looking at unchanging information, on the chance that someone has updated recently. RSS and Atom news feeds solve that problem... Bloglines (or another news aggregator) manages the "go checking" for you and lets you know when something new has shown up. So you can ignore it until there is something new to read. I use it to track Hacking Netflix and Netflix Fan, and about twenty other blogs. Nearly every blog and news site has an RSS or Atom feed.

Bloglines is free and doesn't require you to install anything. Give it a try.

[Peter]

I subscribed to the new release RSS feed and it is overwhelming. I get about 25 items a day, every day. Many are duplicates and most are obscure titles or special interest programs. The feed isn't terribly useful, but since I use my RSS reader all the time (I read your site by RSS) anyway, I'll probably leave it.
Having a feed for your own queue is the stupidest thing I ever heard of. The only time the feed will change is when I change it by altering the queue, so why do I need a feed to tell me that? I know what I did.