Upcoming changes to FeedFliks

Some important changes to the Netflix API go into effect next Friday ie Oct 14th. In summary, the Netflix API will focus exclusively on Streaming content and remove all DVD-related information.

This fundamental change on the Netflix API side affects FeedFliks (and other applications based on their API) in very direct ways that you should know about.

How does this affect you?

• You will no longer be able to view or modify your DVD queue from FeedFliks
• FeedFliks will no longer be able to show you how many titles you’ve been renting each week/month etc.
• FeedFliks will no longer be able to tell how many days you have held onto DVDs and send you the alerts that you might have signed up for.
• Information on your ratings and recommendations will only be for Streaming titles and not DVD titles.
• Other interesting trends such as ‘Most Queued on DVD’ or ‘DVD vs Instant Watch’ will no longer be possible to show.

If you have any further questions, please leave comments here or email us as feedback@feedfliks.com

 

James Bond comes to Netflix Streaming on April 1st

A ton of James Bond movies are coming to Netflix Streaming on April 1st. Here’s the list:

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

You Only Live Twice

Thunderball

The Spy Who Loved Me

Octopussy

Diamonds Are Forever

Never Say Never Again

Moonraker

The Living Daylights

A View to a Kill

For Your Eyes Only

The Man with the Golden Gun

Licence to Kill

Enjoy!

ps: remember you can sign up for Alerts on http://feedfliks.com and you’ll get a reminder email from us the day the title becomes available (April 1 in this case) and, if you’re a Premium member, we’ll also add it to the top of your Instant Queue so the next time you turn on your Roku or Wii, these titles will be waiting for you on the top of your Instant Queue!

 

25 Films Added To The National Film Registry

Today, ABC News reported that 25 films have been added to the National Film Registry by the National Film Registry Board because these titles are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”

Just under half are available to rent on Netflix but of those dozen, you can watch 4 of them right now (bolded below) on Streaming.

1. Airplane! (1980)

2. All the President’s Men (1976)

3. The Bargain (1914)

4. Cry of Jazz (1959)

5. Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB (1967)

6. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

7. The Exorcist (1973)

8. The Front Page (1931)

9. Grey Gardens (1976)

10. I am Joaquin (1969)

11. It’s a Gift (1934)

12. Let There Be Light (1946)

13. Lonesome (1928)

14. Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)

15. Malcolm X (1992)

16. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)

17. Newark Athlete (1891)

18. Our Lady Of The Sphere (1969)

19. The Pink Panther (1964)

20. Preservation Of The Sign Language (1913)

21. Saturday Night Fever (1977)

22. Study Of A River (1996)

23. Tarantella (1940)

24. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945)

25. A Trip Down Market Street (1906)

 

Most Popular Genres on Netflix Streaming

Netflix is quite the media darling these days and even made it to my evening commute listen of Marketplace. You can listen to that show here but the part that caught my attention was the bit where media analyst James McQuivey says:

The people who are streaming the most, it’s because they have children at home. They’re watching an immense amount of “Pink Panther.” They are watching a tremendous number of Disney programs.

Really? Some SQL queries on FeedFliks later, it appears that he might be only somewhat right: the kiddie programs are the second most popular genre on Netflix’s Instant Watch service. And the most popular? Television. Between them, these two account for nearly two-thirds of all streaming activity on Netflix. Here’s what the breakup looks like today (Thanksgiving 2010):

To follow along how this changes, bookmark Most Popular Streaming Genres on FeedFliks. We’ve also added two handy links to the footer: Most Streamed Titles and Most Rented Titles. The former, as you’d expect by now, is heavily dominated by Television.

However, ‘Pink Panther’, while available on Netflix Streaming, isn’t anywhere on the Top 50 Most Streamed Titles which suggests that neither media analysts not the venerable NPR are always right!

 

Never miss another streaming title on Netflix

Many Netflix users do not realize that titles on their Streaming service *can* and do expire, i.e that they have windows of availability. It’s not always obvious from the Netflix website when a title is scheduled to expire from Streaming. One way to avoid the frustration is to use FeedFliks’ Streaming Central for a quick view of what’s About to Expire (as well as keep track of what’s Coming Soon and Just Arrived).

We’ve made keeping track of what’s expiring a bit easier with Expiring Alerts. On your FeedFliks Account Page, you can sign up to get emailed once a week about titles on your Instant Queue that are about to expire.

One you set that to ‘Yes’, FeedFliks will email you every Friday (for now) listing titles on your Instant Queue that will expire in the next two weeks. For additional FeedFliks goodness, we’ll also check against your NF Recommendations list to see if any titles that NF thinks you’ll really love that are available to stream are about to expire so that you can watch them rightaway. Here’s a snippet of what that looks like:

Currently, this is available to all of you FeedFliks-ers out there but we’d really appreciate if you upgraded to  FeedFliks Premium.

Happy Thansksgiving!

 

Use FeedFliks to Auto-Add Upcoming Streaming Titles to your Instant Queue

The ability to get Streaming Alerts Via Email is a much-used and much-loved feature at FeedFliks. The way this works is that whenever you see a title that is scheduled to come to Netflix Streaming in the near future, you click on the Remind button and you’ll get an email from us the day that title actually starts to stream. This is great but you still need to remember add it to your queue which is an extra step. Starting now, you’ll be able to tell FeedFliks that in addition to emailing you about the title’s availability on streaming, it should also get added to the Top of your Instant Queue. It’s simple to do this and here’s what it looks like on your FeedFliks Streaming Alerts page:

Just click on the ‘Once Available, Add to Instant Q’ link. And if you change your mind about having it auto-added to your queue (you’ll still get notified by email), then just toggle it back by clicking on the ‘Undo Auto-add to Instant Q’ link.

This is a FeedFliks Premium feature. If you use FeedFliks regularly, we’d greatly appreciate if you upgraded: just $8.99 for awhole year. Thank you!

 

FeedFliks now helps you find Netflix titles with subtitles

A couple days ago, the good folks at http://ncmacasl.blogspot.com/2010/10/netflix-instantwatch-titles-with.html emailed asking if there was a way for FeedFliks to point out what titles on Netflix Streaming have subtitles or closed-captioning. Right now, they have an entirely manual process which means a lot of (un-ending) work.

Things just got easier!

You should now see a small CC icon next to Streaming Titles on FeedFliks that have closed-captioning. See Forrest Gump, Up and The Boondock Saints below for example:

 

And yes, you can also search for just those Streaming Titles that have subtitles. Here’s a shortcut to the results page: http://bit.ly/cmpzyi. To filter, just choose ‘Instant Watch with Subtitles’ in the Format pulldown – here’s what that looks like:

On FeedFliks’ Search Page, you can add other filter conditions and change the sorting order of the results (by default, the best rated movies are at the top). This should be very useful for anyone who needs subtitles for disability reasons or otherwise.

We hope we’re making Netflix even more awesome to all of you out there!

 

Netflix wins a long-term bet

From http://www.longbets.org/3, from April 2002:

“A profitable video-on-demand service aimed at consumers will offer 10,000 titles to 5 million subscribers by 2010.”

Another win for Netflix’s Streaming service which has handily beaten both metrics by a 100% margin.

 

Entire Rocky Series Coming to Instant Watch

 

Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky started streaming on Oct 1st and the rest of the series through till Rocky V is coming to Netflix Streaming starting Dec 1st. Interestingly the average rating of each Rocky movie has steadily trended downward!

Get your streaming reminders on FeedFliks!

 

Clean Up Your Instant Queue

Titles on Netflix’s Streaming service have a bad habit of expiring which leaves you with slots on your Instant Queue taken up by titles you can’t actually Watch Instantly anymore. To delete  all those titles in one swell swoop, just click on the link as shown below in bold and red: right under the Instant Queue section on your FeedFliks page.

And you’ll now have your slots back to fill with available movies or TV shows. Not sure what titles to add: a great place to get ideas is FeedFliks’ Streaming Central.

Note that this is a Premium feature and not available to everyone. FeedFlik’s Premium Plan costs only $8.99/year and comes with a lot of benefits like regular data refreshes, queue modification features (including this one), no ads, email reminders and of course that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from supporting one of your favorite services: please upgrade now!