Hacking NetFlix

Report: Netflix in Talks with Ex-HBO Films President About Partnership

The LA Times reports that Netflix is in discussions with ex-HBO Films president Colin Callender about producing titles for Netflix. 

Netflix is discussing a partnership with former HBO Films president Colin Callender to produce original content, including mini-series and movies, for the online video service, according to three people with knowledge of the talks who are not authorized to speak about them publicly.

Should a deal be reached, it would accelerate Netflix's growing resemblance to pay cable network HBO, where Callender worked for two decades and played a pivotal role in its award-winning programming success. He left amid a management shake-up at the Time Warner Inc.-owned cable network in 2008.

If Netflix wants to be more like HBO, working with ex-HBO execs is a great place to start.

The Full List of Expiring Starz Titles -- Watch Them Before February 29th

Netlfix said that they didn't renew the Starz deal because the renewal cost was too high and because the titles only accounted for a small percentage of streaming. So, if you want to see any of the Starz titles you only have a few days left. TV and Movies Now (by Tech of the Hub) has posted the list of expiring Starz titles, and also notes which ones are are available on Amazon Prime.

Netflix Suffered Huge Drop in American Customer Satisfaction Index

Bloomberg reports that Netflix took a huge hit in the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Satisfaction with Netflix, the online and mail-order video service, slid 14 percent to 74 from a year earlier on a scale of 0 to 100, according to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index. That was below the 76.1 rating of all retailers and one of the biggest drops in more than 16 years of tracking, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based ASCI LLC said in a statement.

About the survey:

The American Consumer Satisfaction Index is based on interviews and a model developed at the University of Michigan that maps customer expectations, perceived quality, value and satisfaction against customer complaints and customer loyalty.

Whitney Houston's Bodyguard Not Pulled From Streaming Because of Her Death

When I was asked by several readers if Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard was pulled because of her death, I checked with Netflix PR and was told that it was not true. Unfortunately, the rumor spread, but in fact the title was removed from streaming on January 1st, long before her death.

The rumor was believable is that this is the type of thing the studios would do. 

Netflix Updated Business Opportunity Presentation for 2012

Netflix updated the Business Opportunity presentation on the career section of the Netflix website, and while it's designed for people interested in working at Netflix, it sheds some light on on how Netflix views the future, competition, and opportunity:

Netflix Business Opportunity

View more presentations from Reed Hastings

If you're interested in learning more about Netflix, you should view the Freedom & Responsibility Culture presentation as well. 

via NewTeeVee.

Netflix Open Sources Application Metrics Library 'Servo'

Netflix continues to share the tools they use to run Netflix.com. On the Netflix Tech Blog, Brian Harrington & Greg Orzell explain what Servo is:

It is designed to make it easy for developers to export metrics from their application code, register them with JMX, and publish them to external monitoring systems such as Amazon's CloudWatch. This is especially important at Netflix because we are a data driven company and it is essential that we know what is going on inside our applications in near real time. As we increased our use of auto scaling based on application load, it became important for us to be able to publish custom metrics to CloudWatch so that we could configure auto-scaling policies based on the metrics that most accurately capture the load for a given application. We already had the servo framework in place to publish data to our internal monitoring system, so it was extended to allow for exporting a subset (AWS charges on a per metric basis) of the data into CloudWatch.

How many major companies share the code for the tools they use to run their site? 

Netflix & Hulu Are Looking to Launch in Russia

Broadband TV News reports that Netflix & Hulu are both looking into launching in Russia.

Representatives of Hulu and Netflix are understood to have held preliminary talks about the possibility of entering the Russian market.

Quoting the heads of several media companies, Vedomosti reports that those from Hulu, who met with Russian film studios and video services, included Johannes Larcher, the company’s SVP international.

They discussed such issues as the general state of the video market in Russia, demands for video advertising, the strategy of individual players and their financial situation.

Netflix Won't Disclose Viewership Numbers for Lilyhammer; 2nd Season in Works?

Deadline.com posted Netflix's Chief Content Officer Ted Sarando's memo on why they won't post viewership number for the new Lilyhammer series. 

Many of you have asked us to disclose day-after viewership numbers for our new original series “Lilyhammer,” which Netflix members in the U.S., Canada and Latin America could watch instantly beginning yesterday.  Let me explain why we won’t.

We have over 23 million streaming members and they’ll have the opportunity to discover Lilyhammer not just yesterday, today or this week, but over the course of several years.  Some members have loved the show so much that they’ve already watched the entire eight-episode first season; we put all the episodes up at once for that reason. Over time, other members will hear about Lilyhammer from their friends or discover it through our recommendation engine, based on the shows and movies they’ve enjoyed in the past.

At Netflix, we are all about giving people choice in the way they enjoy TV shows and movies. They can watch one episode or all eight back-to-back. They can start in the living room on their Smart TV and end in the bedroom on their iPad. We don’t show commercials so we don’t have to deliver audience numbers to advertisers. We do have to deliver a great experience to our members.

We’re confident Lilyhammer will build a sizeable audience on Netflix and we’re excited to be at the forefront of change in the way consumers get their entertainment.

The story also notes that a second season of Lilyhammer has reportedly been ordered.

Be Careful When Streaming Netflix on Mobile Devices, Especially When Traveling

The NY Daily News tells the story of a Canadian man, traveling to the U.S., managed to rack up more than $10,000 in roaming charges because of Netflix streaming:

"The kids were getting bored," his son, Jason, told CBC News. "So we decided to watch Netflix on my air-card on my laptop."

The children watched several movies, such as "Shrek," "Spider-Man" and "Curious George."

Gibson did not consider the cost, however, which skyrocketed due to the combination of constant Internet use and roaming charges.

"It was over $10,000," he said. "I went, 'Good Lord.'"

The Canadian grandfather quickly contacted his provider, SaskTel, and explained the situation to them. Of the total $10,668.38 he was initially charged, the company only required him to pay $1,000. 

If you're going to stream on your mobile device using a data plan you really need to be aware of data usage (an hour of video can use as much as 1GB). You can also adjust video quality to help manage data usage, and you can find the Manage Video Quality settings under Your Account.

It's also a good idea to check with your cell phone company before traveling out of your country to understand how international data usage & billing works.

via Consumerist.

Interesting Netflix Tidbits from the Facebook IPO Filing

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, a Facebook (and Microsoft) board member, stands to do very well when Facebook goes public. From Home Media Magazine:

Hastings holds 20,000 shares of “restricted stock units” (RSUs), which allow him to receive cash or stock value of Class B common stock shares upon satisfying a vesting period, according to the filing. Hastings’ vesting condition (which could be a period of time or based on job performance) is not expected to occur before March 31.

Hastings earned more than $610,000 in total compensation from Facebook in 2011, which included $16,667 in board fees and $593,400 in stock-based compensation.

The Wall Street Journal discovered that Netflix bought some ads on Facebook, despite not being able to share ratings and reviews on Facebook due to the VPPA.

Meanwhile Netflix, another company led by a Facebook board member in Reed Hastings, purchased $3.8 million in ads on Facebook last year, well above the $1.6 million it purchased the year before and $1.9 million it purchased in 2009.

For Netflix, where expenses have been under a microscope, that’s less than 1% of its $400 million in marketing expenses for 2011.