Netflix Launches "Friends List" Feature

Update: This was the big news from the investor call. 

I was invited to join the Netflix "Friends List" last night and it's an extremely well thought-out way to share your love of movies with friends. It's also very viral -- you can even invite people that don't belong to Netflix to join.

Here's the invitation e-mail I received (I was asked to hide the name of the person that invited me):

This is the Friends List tab and page. Note the purple color on the tab, review stars, and the little purple person on movies a friend has seen:

This is the top of my queue. They put the little purple person next to movies your friends have seen:

I haven't had time to play with all of the features, but I like what I've seen so far. I have friends that I'd like to share movies and reviews with, and I can't wait to spend some time with it.

You view the friends page online at: http://www.netflix.com/FriendsLearnMore?.

Comments

[Tony Gentile]

Congrats on getting in and getting the scoop. Hope to get a chance to play with it myself soon.

[Steven Hoober]

I can't get it to work, nor can another guy here. The invite page is empty. Is it a beta that only works for some people or what?

[Bombadil]

Sounds great. Now I just have to get some friends who have Netflix.

[Mike]

Steven,

You have to be invited, so I just invited you.

If anyone else wants an invite, just let me know. I'll try and respond to anyone that's interested tonight.

Please be patient as I have a day job. ;-)

- Mike

[lawilson]

Yeah, invite me Mike! :)

[Hoon Park]

I would appreciate an invite as well. Thanks!

hoonpark@gmail.com

[smash]

I would very much appreciate an invite.

Thanks.

smashsc (at) gmail (dot) com

[Beev]

I'd love to try out this new 'Friends' feature:

brianvance+Netflix (at) mailcan (dot) com

[Mel]

Please invite me as well.
Thanks!

[Dan]

Can someone invite me? This looks like a pretty cool feature, but I dont have any friends that have Netflix here....

[Becky]

Thanks for the invite!!

[Tony Gentile]

Who's your buddy? Who's your pal? :)

[Melanie Rutberg]

Thanks Mike!

[Kathryn]

I enjoy your site. Thanks for the info one and all. Please send me a netflix invite as well.

werbler(at)gmail
Thanks!

[Dave]

Could someone please invite me? My friend and I (who both use netflix) would really like to share queues. It sounds like that is what this feature does.
Thanks

[Dave]

Freaky quick...thanks Mike

[Ron]

I would love an invite: emailforron (at) comcast (dot) net. Thanks for the great news!

[Matt M.]

Some invite love to netflix (at) csbgroup [dot] org would be awesome.

[D Bates]

sounds like a great idea to me would love to check it out more dnjbates@southern-shots.com

[Aron]

Just looking at it now. I imagine there was some debate about using purple. Next feature request, customizable skins ;)

I feel like I'm in a skittles commercial.

[Brian]

I would also love to start inviting friends. If someone could invite me as well that would be great. Thank you. brian@ranzino.com

[joe]

i've been waiting for this since I got my in-laws to sign-up for Netflix. Really only needed to be a "suggest movie to a friend" feature, but they went further.

So if someone could invite me, that would be great. ... .joe

[Aron]

I like the 2-cent feature. I would benefit from a mechanism for quickly running down my current list of rated films and entering these. It is a much more appealing way of commenting on the films then reviews were (I've already outpaced my total review count). I'm not sure whether the appeal is more the small limit (allowing basically a movie haiku), or knowing that friends will see it. Probably the latter.

With a friends network supporting it, I think they should take the plunge and jump into full support of services surrounding upcoming and at theatre films. While only tangentially related to renting films, it builds the total customer value equation of Netflix tremendously and helps to position them as a full-service movie outlet (used purchase/trade-in would also be nice). As friends see films in the theatre they provide their opinions as a pre-screening. I think such a section would also garner its own "In Theaters"(ok, use American sp) tab. We've already seen the beginnings of customer monetization w.r.t to new films (see: envelopes). Most free-for-all movie sites have a muddle of anarchy in their user comments that is solved by the friends network. New releases are more likely, IMO, to have that critical mass of interest that keeps the social networking functions thriving.

Good job Netflix. I hope the price war is not putting stress on these types of innovations. This is where the $$ belongs. People will pay the extra couple bucks a year for it. There's been too much focus on cost-cutting and simplification, you drive yourself into commoditization and erase your first mover advantage that way.

Fix the skittles issue though ;)

[jesse.p]

looks like it's just going to a select group of people for beta testing right now. drat the luck. here's the FAQ:

"...We’re letting a handful of customers give the Netflix Friends feature a try before everyone else..."

http://www.netflix.com/FAQ?p_faqid=502

[Matt]

I'd love an invite. Thanks for the scoop!