Hacking NetFlix

Netflix was #22 on E! Online's 100 Best Things in Pop Culture, and I love the reason Netflix streaming made the list: 

Above all, it's about living an approximation of the dream life as promised by that TV commercial from the turn-of-the-21 century, the one with the tumbleweed motel that featured "every movie ever made in any language, anytime, day or night."

Now, of course, Netflix doesn't stream "every movie ever made." It doesn't even stream every movie Howard Stern ever made, and he's only made one. That's why we said its service offers an approximation of the dream life. But still, you have to admit, it's pretty close—pretty, awfully, tantalizingly close. Anytime, day or night, you can watch anything, almost.

I still remember that commercial, and unfortunately we're still a long way away from being able to "watch every movie ever made." Someday...

Forbes reports that Nigerian streaming company IrokoTV has raised another $2 million, on top of a recent $8 million round.

Barely 3 months after raising $8million in venture capital from New York private equity and hedge fund Tiger Global Management, Iroko Partners, the world’s largest online distributor of Nigerian movies, has just closed on a $2 million round of funding from Swedish-based Kinnevik, an early investor in group buying site Groupon.

Iroko Partners is the holding company of IrokoTV, a Nigerian movie streaming service which has consistently been dubbed ‘The Netflix of Africa’. IrokoTV is YouTube’s biggest partner in Africa, boasting over 150 million views in 2011. Iroko Partners also enjoys content distribution deals with Dailymotion, iTunes, Amazon and Vimeo. The company was founded by Jason Njoku, one of 10 Young African Millionaires To Watch this year.

Hollywood Reporter: Netflix Chief Content Officer will keynote the Hollywood Reporter Power Lawyers Breakfast on July 18th.

At the breakfast event, Sarandos, who has made waves in the entertainment industry by bringing Netflix into the content creation market, will lead a Q&A session moderated by THR news director Matthew Belloni. Fricklas will receive the Raising the Bar Award for an in-house lawyer who has made a lasting impact on Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

"Michael Fricklas was chosen for this year's Raising the Bar Award because his work for Viacom has distinguished the company on several legal issues important to Hollywood, especially the war on piracy," says Belloni, who oversees THR's award-winning legal coverage with senior editor Eriq Gardner and launched the Power Lawyers issue and event in 2007.

Here's the full list of new Netflix DVD releases this week (detailed list): Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Big Miracle, Casa de mi Padre, Friends with Kids, Extraterrestrial, The Fairy, Cat Run, Lockout, Black Butterflies, Here, 4:44: Last Day on Earth, Doomsday Prophecy, Finding Your Roots, and Dan Vs.: Season 1.

Interesting recent streaming releases include Breaking Bad (new season), Memento, Disappeared (new episodes), Titanic, Rampart, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Alice, Earthsea, Merlin, Neverland, Party Monster, Absentia, and The Guild.

Due to the complexities of international license agreements, not all movies and TV shows are available in all of the countries Netflix supports. Flickr user Jason Clark posted the following dialog from the Netflix app that warns about content differences, and that your queue and star ratings may not be available in all countries (the U.S. is the only country that has a queue). 

Image posted with permission.

Reader Joe writes, "My Netflix Instant Queue is stuck at 14 items.  If I add any more than that, within minutes the additional items disappear from my queue.  Netflix support says they're aware of the issue and they're working on it.  I've been experiencing this issue since yesterday.  Is anyone else having trouble keeping newly added items in their Netflix queue?"

Deadline reports that more casting choices have been made for the Netflix series 'House of Cards' and 'Hemlock Grove.'

Wass Stevens has joined the Netflix series House Of Cards in the recurring role of Paul Capra, who runs the shipyard workers’ association.

Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica, The Bridge) has joined the Netflix series Hemlock Grove as Sheriff Sworn, the local lawman investigating a young girl’s gruesome murder in a Pennsylvania steel town.

Greg Sandoval from CNET took a look back at the Qwikster & price hike debacle that happened a year ago (time really flies, doesn't it?). Sandoval spoke with current and former employees to get a better understanding as to what went wrong.

Once the decision to spin of the DVD business as DVD Co. (eventually Qwikster) in March was made, Hastings started separating the businesses immediately:

Some employees were stunned by how quickly and unemotionally DVD operations, the backbone of the business for a decade, was split off from the company. DVD Co. was moved out of Netflix's offices to a space a few blocks away. Netflix's leaders stopped discussing DVDs. Those Netflix executives who moved to DVD Co. stopped attending Netflix management meetings. Some of those people included Allison Hopkins, Netflix's vice president of human resources, Liz Coddington, vice president of financial planning and John Robison, vice president of DVD product development.

Few people who had worked for Netflix for any length of time were surprised that there wasn't more discussion about the plan. As Netflix's business blossomed and as he was personally applauded in the press, Hastings had grown much more confident in his own decision making, less receptive to taking advice from his senior management team. What's more, few of the people who could persuade Hastings or tell him he was making a mistake were around anymore.

Sandoval's sources suggest that Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy left over a salary dispute with Hastings (he was unhappy about a raise given to CCO Ted Sarandos):

McCarthy was livid, said the sources, and he went to Hastings to discuss his salary. The two men worked on finding a compromise but the damage was done. McCarthy handed in his resignation and within two days Hastings replaced him with David Wells, Netflix's vice president of financial planning and analysis. The same day McCarthy cleared out.

If you want to get a better understanding of what happened and what it's like to work at Netflix, you should read the entire article. 

Time Magazine on why parents like to use Netflix as a babysitter instead of commercial TV.

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger conducted focus groups interviewing 16 mothers about when and how they allowed their children to watch television. In a report, he found that “content control, commercial avoidance and time management” were their key concerns when finding entertainment for their kids. The moms were worried that the commercials usually associated with kids channels were not only selling them on unhealthy snacks but also lowering their attention spans. Netflix lacks commercials and gives parents more direct control of what’s coming down the content pipe, which moms liked.

C'mon, parent, fess up: Have you used Netflix as a babysitter?

The Next Web has a story about the challenges Netflix is facing in countries like Brazil.

Still, cultural differences remain, which has an impact on programming expectations. “Brazilians enjoy different things, like UFC and stand-up comedies, while hating telenovelas that are made in other Latin American countries,” Friedland told TechTudo.

Beyond genres, the main challenge is streaming quality – a problem several of Netflix’s competitors already pointed out in a recent panel we covered on OTT services in Latin America. Despite efforts to boost broadband penetration, it is still far from universal. As Friedland noted, “in Brazil, operators charge for a speed they don’t deliver to consumers, which is a barrier for the country’s growth.”

Yet, the company boasts it solves part of the problem thanks to adaptive streaming, and delivers higher quality than YouTube for the same bandwidth. “The quality of our service [in Brazil] isn’t bad, but it isn’t as good as it could be,” Friedland summarized.

I can't imagine the logistical, licensing, marketing and cultural challenges Netflix faces in each country they enter.

Tech Bargains surveyed readeers and almost 30% have cut cable TV. Among the results of the survey:

What services do you use?

• 74% Netflix
• 61% Youtube
• 47% Amazon Instant Video
• 23% iTunes
• 22% Hulu Plus
• 18% Torrents
• 14% Other
• 8% VUDU
• 4% Blockbuster

I love infographics, and here's part of the Tech Bargains cord-cutting infographic:

Have you cut the cord?

Here's the full list of new DVD releases this week (detailed list): The Flowers of War, Off Limits. The Note 3, Black Limousine, Planet Dinosaur, and Adventure Time.

Interesting streaming releases in the past week include Syriana, Immortals, Conan the Barbarian, The Air I Breathe, Management, Memento, Ronin, Broadway Danny Rose, Lady Gaga's Secret World, Clockstoppers, Raising Arizona, Red Dawn, Caught Inside, 12 Monkeys, Donnie Brasco, A League of Their Own, Internal Affairs, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Descent, Qaddafi's Female Bodyguards, and Bad Lieutenant.

Michael Rubin, who used to be Netflix's Director of Product Management, posted a photo he took of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings checking out a closed Blockbuster store in 2008 (posted with permission). I would love to know what Hastings was thinking at this moment.

Rubin started his career working for Lucas Film and wrote a book about the experience: Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution.

Canada.com has the story about Netflix film taggers, people who get paid to watch movies and answer more than 100 questions about the movie. 

Every week, Canning receives a list of movies and TV shows. Usually there are about five, ranging from Quebecois preschool shows to crazy violent Sci-Fi flicks.

She watches each with a spreadsheet open on her laptop and notes every detail imaginable in the film. Does it end tragically or have a happy one? Was there a high squirm factor? What about the use of curse words?

“It covers everything from big picture stuff like storyline, scene and tone, to details of whether there is a lot of smoking in the movie,” Canning says.

Each Netflix entry in the massive Netflix library is tagged with north of 100 data points. Some are simple, like the gender and jobs of the main characters. Others are ratings, like how violent is the title on a scale of one to five?

These tags power the Netflix suggestion engine. The company has created algorithms that suggest films based on user behavior. If you watch ten films with depressing endings, Black Swan might pop up the next time you log in. (Sorry, spoiler alert.)

Early in its existence, Netflix tested out film tags provided by external companies, but found that they failed in comparison to actual human taggers.

Has anyone worked as a Netflix Film Tagger?