Dear Netflix:

Being a political junkie, I have waited patiently for Kevin Spacey’s new original Netflix Drama, House of Cards, and every time I go to the site, there’s no place to remind me, email me, what have you, of the date that episodes will come available.  I can’t put it in my “Instant Queue”, I’m guessing I have to wait until February 1st, to do so?  This is kind of poor planning, isn’t it?  Aren’t you planning for failure.  Where’s the opportunity for people to say, “OH! Kevin Spacey is in a new online original show, let me subscribe to it now so I can see it when it becomes available!”

As it is, you’re asking the average consumer to be so wowed by a trailer that they will forget about their daily lives and mark down 1 February 2013 as a MUST SEE day for the debut of this show.  Speaking as one of your consumers who does want to see this show, I all but forgot about it until just a moment ago.  In fact, earlier this evening I was wondering when the new “political” show that Kevin Spacey was supposed to be in would be on, but I couldn’t tell you what it was called, and I knew I’d have to search Google to find out, and… as much as I wanted to watch it, I didn’t do it just then.  For me, I’m just wondering how many people you’ve lost who saw any amount of marketing or publicity you’ve already done for this show, went, “Wow!  That sounds amazing!” and had no way to set a future notification up. 

This sounds like something you should probably fix if you’re going to look into expanding into further original programming.  

Just a thought, 

b

shortformblog:

Netflix’s Reed Hastings: “Comcast no longer following net neutrality principles.”

I spent the weekend enjoying four good internet video apps on my Xbox: Netflix, HBO GO, Xfinity, and Hulu. 

When I watch video on my Xbox from three of these four apps, it counts against my Comcast internet cap. When I watch through Comcast’s Xfinity app, however, it does not count against my Comcast internet cap. 

For example, if I watch last night’s SNL episode on my Xbox through the Hulu app, it eats up about one gigabyte of my cap, but if I watch that same episode through the Xfinity Xbox app, it doesn’t use up my cap at all. 

The same device, the same IP address, the same wifi, the same internet connection, but totally different cap treatment.

In what way is this neutral?

Hastings’ point: Comcast favors its own Xfinity services against those of video-on-demand competitors, including Hastings’ own Netflix. Knowing this, would you be less likely to use Comcast, or does it matter to you?