How much of a movie do people sit through?
Outsourced - Sit through Factor
We thought it would be interesting to see how much of a movie people actually get through before they give up. Now while that’s impossible to do with DVDs, it’s quite easy to figure it out for Netflix’s Instant Watch titles. Starting today, for all stream-able titles, FeedFliks will be able so show you just how much of the movie people were able to sit through. You’ll be able to see a ‘Sit through Factor’ right under the ‘Play’ button as shown.
Right now, Outsourced has a 86% factor which I guess means that it’s pretty watchable. Some other interesting movies:
Good Night, and Good Luck is at 68%
National Treasure: Book of Secrets is at 76%
On the other hand, The Blood of My Brother which Netflix’s synopsis says is “A gripping documentary from filmmaker Andrew Berends…” is at 24%. Is it possible that the writer of the synopsis was referring to people gripping their remotes as they rushed to find the ‘Pause/Stop’ button?
We’re hoping you’ll find this useful to check before you blow a lot of time on a really bad movie 
Netflix DVD Shipments Vs Instant Watches – revisited October 2009
In our first post to kick off this blog back in February 2009, we looked at the impressive growth of Netflix’s Instant Watch offering. In light of Netflix recent quarter results, let’s re-visit that. Eight months later, here’s what things look like:
Netflix DVD Vs Instant Watch Oct 2009
Growth seems to have accelerated in 2009 with Streams at about 150% of Shipments this year! It also looks like the number of DVD Shipments in 2009 will not be that much greater than in 2008 but it *will* still exceed 2008 shipments. It will probably take a few years to level off before the curve starts to bend downwards as far as Shipments are concerned.
The Streaming curve on the other hand is quite insane and in 2010, Netflix will likely spend more time and money worrying about ISPs, dark fiber, Net Neutrality and bandwidth caps than they do about the USPS and DVD theft.
The evolution of the Netflix mailer
An interesting look at how the red envelope got to where it is today: http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/netflix/frameset.exclude.html
How many DVDs does Netflix lose?
HackingNetflix recently asked its readers how often they received cracked DVDs/Blu-ray discs. CNN also ran a story about a postal worker who got arrested for stealing DVDs. From that CNN article: “Netflix says that it ships 2 million DVDs a day. It was probably inevitable that some of them would not make it to their intended subscribers.” Just what percentage of these get back safe and sound to Netflix and how many are ‘lost’?
Over at FeedFliks, we use the Netflix API to pull users’ data over so we can help them maximize their Netflix membership. It is possible via the API to find shipments that don’t have a corresponding return. Now these one-way-only titles can be so for a variety of reasons: you never got the DVD Netflix mailed out, or you got it and it was scratched/cracked so you sent it back, or you got it, it was ok and you watched it and sent it back to Netflix but they either never got it or got it very late.
Across millions of shipments for tens of thousands of Netflix subscribers, we found that only 0.3% did not make it back. The remaining 99.7% are either safely back with Netflix or being enjoyed by subscribers at any time.
Just thought folks would be interested in that.
Netflix’s Instant Watch selection sucks – or does it?
One of the most common gripes about Netflix’s Instant Watch/Streaming selection is that the quality of the titles is, umm, sub-par.
Certainly, from a casual look at the selection, it’s clear that it is not spilling over with blockbuster hits or Oscar winning titles. But what if we took the average rating of titles that are available for instant watch and compared with the overall (with the caveat that at 17,000 titles out of a catalog of 100,000+, some 85% of the titles are *not* available for streaming) . Over at FeedFliks, we have a copy of the Netflix catalog and at least by one common metric, the average rating of a title, the numbers are less stark:
Average rating of ALL titles in the Netflix catalog: 2.94
Average rating of titles available on instant watch: 2.98
Average rating of titles available on DVD only (not via streaming): 2.93
It appears that while the sheer number of IW titles is small, the average rating is not worse. It is, in fact, slightly better: 2.98 vs 2.94! In other words a title that you picked out randomly from the catalog would actually be better if it was a stream-able title than not.
I certainly did not expect that – did you? As always, comments are welcome.
FeedFliks tells you when ‘Saved’ movies in your Queue become available
We’ve all done this before: heard about an interesting movie and tried to rent it on Netflix. If the DVD is not released yet, Netflix allows you to ’save’ this to your queue. This is great, but there’s no way to easily figure out when that movie is released on DVD and see it quickly. Netflix moves it to the bottom of your queue (as they should) where it sits and sits…
Not any longer.
On your FeedFliks page, you’ll now be able to see if any of the titles you’ve saved in your Queue has become available recently. Under the ‘Maximize your membership’ section you’ll see if any saved movies have become available.
Clicking on the link will allow you to see what those movies are and let you quickly move any titles you want to the top of your Queue. And if the title is available via Instant Watch, then you’ll be able to hit the ‘Play’ button right there and start watching it. Say goodbye to long and interminable waits.
The Case of the Streaming Titles
Sherlock Homes on FeedFliks
Watson: Holmes! Holmes! A *ton* of our stories are now available on Netflix Streaming
Holmes: Hmmm… Yes, I’ve heard
Watson: But how can people easily find them?
Holmes: You know my methods Watson. Apply them.
Watson: Ummm…
Holmes: Elementary, my dear Watson: http://bit.ly/zbaQS
Blu-ray much?
If you have Blu-ray on your Netflix plan, you can quickly find Blu-ray titles in Netflix’s catalog with FeedFliks Search. The Format picklist in search now has a new option for ‘Blu-ray Only’ which you can use to limit searches to Blu-ray titles. Happy Hunting!
A million dollar idea to improve your Queue
Life is short and your queue is long. http://feedfliks.com/size-of-queue tells us that almost half of you have over a 100 titles in your Queue. That’s too many to keep track of in your head and, chances are, that title in position 235 is never going to be watched. Which is ok except that Netflix might think that you’ll like Movie # 235 more than all the hundreds of movies ahead of it. Netflix recently gave away $1 Million to improve their movie recommendation algorithm so it’s likely Netflix has a pretty good guess as to how much you’d like a particular movie.
Wouldn’t it be cool to run your big Queue by Netflix and ask if there are any gems lurking far, far below in your Queue? You can now do that with FeedFliks. Just head to your account page and look for the ‘Analyze your Queue’ section (it’s near the bottom) and hit the ‘Yes, do it’ link and you’re done! (If you haven’t signed up for FeedFliks yet, you should!)
Here’s a before and after of what it looks like:
Current Queue
Netflix's Suggested Queue
Let’s put that million dollars to work!
Play any stream-able Netflix title easily from FeedFliks
Until now, we’ve tried to bring to your attention, any titles that have become available via Netflix’s Streaming service. We’re taking this one logical step further by adding ‘Play’ buttons next to all titles that are stream-able.
From your own DVD Queue (why waste a DVD rental when you can see it now?) to the Netflix Top 100 (4 of which are still streamable) or Netflix New Releases (12 are streamable!) to Movie Detail pages to Search results to FeedFliks Streaming Central, you should start seeing these blue ‘Play’ buttons all over FeedFliks.
Just click ‘Play’ and in a minute or so, your movie will start playing in a new window. Yes, it is that easy!
