Kiosk.net

I have commented before on Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ call for format agnosticism regarding Toshiba’s HD-DVD and Sony’s Blu-Ray technology. Now that Sony has pushed back the American release of its Blu-Ray DVD players to October, Hastings has reiterated this demand, citing the presence of consumer anxiety in the face of competing formats that will assuredly dampen DVD sales for both Toshiba and Sony. And to make matters worse, Samsung apparently has a third type of Hi-Def DVD player on the market (although it is almost impossible to find).

I think Hastings is completely correct. Unless Sony, Toshiba, and maybe even Samsung, get on the same page with this, Hi-Def DVD technology will never be embraced. Consumers need to be confident that in buying a new type of DVD player they are not buying another Sega Saturn, MiniDisc Player, Panasonic 3DO, or any other destined-to-fail piece of home entertainment technology.

[Via Net Music Countdown]

According to this just-published press release, the features on Netflix’s website will now include a previews section that filters trailers in accordance with the user’s rental history and assumed preferences. You can watch this uninterrupted stream of trailers for as long as you want, and even add films to your queue directly from the “Previews” interface. As of now, there are 1,000 trailers available for viewing, but Netflix hopes to bump that number up to 10,000 by year end.

I like the idea of showing a steady stream of random trailers; it makes it feel like you’re at the movies. But good luck trying to cater to my random scatter-shot movie interests (although I guess my eclectic taste could actually be easier to ‘figure out,’ given that they could reasonably show me just about any trailer).

A recent article in USA Today (accessible here) introduced me to an interesting concept that, I think, captures the questions regarding the movie downloading model: “fidelity.”

In techspeak, “fidelity” refers to the total experience of something, including the qualitative differences between that experience and its alternatives. The key to understanding and predicting consumer behavior is figuring out the relationship between convenience and fidelity. When the ability to enjoy a form of media reaches a certain level of convenience, consumers are generally willing to sacrifice fidelity. The perfect example of this is the iPod, which doesn’t provide the sound quality of a regular CD but provides such a high level of convenience (in the form of ultimately lower cost, a higher level of portability, etc.) that consumers were all over it. Applying this concept to movie downloading suggests that the key is to make the model so convenient that consumers will ultimately accept the drop off in fidelity from watching honest-to-goodness DVDs on their home entertainment systems. But the other way to look at the issue is that movie downloading services need to raise the fidelity of their offerings, so that they have more to offer than just convenience.

An example of the importance of fidelity is in Google’s new (and free) book downloading service (brought to my attention by this article). Most book publishers aren’t really worried about this service because it isn’t convenient enough to outweigh the fidelity of buying a book (downloading takes forever, reading on a screen is awful, printing is more expensive than you would think and it also takes forever, etc.). Ultimately, I think this model should serve as a good example for the movie downloading biz: don’t even bother with launching it until the fidelity of the experience catches up to the convenience of downloading a film, i.e. until DVD burning is an unlimited reality, etc.

Looks like there is another player in the internet-rental forum. The recently launched Creepyflix.com prides itself on being able to satisfy the demands of horror and sci-fi fans looking to rent harder-to-find titles and editions of their favorite, most disturbing movies. A review and discussion of the service at Cinematical.com suggests that the site is a tad bit better than Netflix for hardcore creepy movie fans, although delivery times are unavoidably longer. My guess it that Netflix doesn’t see sites like this as a threat (most of the comments at Cinematical are given by people who have accounts with both companies) but as the offspring of its wonderfully successful rental model.

I just came across a cool little Netflix-based software application for Macs that allows you to more efficiently and conveniently navigate and arrange your queue than is possible via the standard Netflix interface. Full use of the Netflix Freak application only costs $15 (you get a free 30-day trial period). It allows users to organize their queues via dropping-and-dragging or cutting-and-pasting, make notes to themselves, work with several queues at once, and more. I don’t have a Mac so I haven’t been able to try the app myself but it sounds like a great idea.

Click here for reviews, information, screenshots, and to download Netflix Freak 2.4.3.

Thanks to a link from Scott Kirsner at Cinematech, I was directed to a very interesting article in the Boston Globe about companies offering rental-by-mail services that are based upon the Netflix model. These include Gamefly (which rents video games), Simply Audiobooks (self-explanatory), and GreenCine (which rents rare and artsy films). Many of these services, however, like Netflix, are accepting the fact that downloading is the future (Simply Audiobooks already offers it).

Read the full article here.

This is not quite a news or opinion item, but just some cool I pics I’m passing along from Becky at Netflix Fan, via Mike K at Hacking Netflix. These wish-you-worked-for-a-different-company pics are of the inside of Netflix’ (relatively) new headquarters in Los Gatos, CA. Apparently, every conference room (and even bathroom) has a different movie theme, ranging from “The Matrix” to “Dr. Strangelove.” Click here to check ‘em out.

Early reviews are giving Mark Whalberg’s “Invincible” the usual accolades granted to a decent sports movie (they’re all the same): it’s heartwarming, family-friendly, etc. But what I am really interested in seeing is how Greg Kinnear comes across as Dick Vermeil. I think Kinnear is an underrated actor (sometimes even great in the right role) and the real Vermeil has such a recognizable persona that it will be interesting to see how Kinnear tackles the role. Unfortunately, most reviews aren’t written by football people, so scouring the blog circuit and newspapers hasn’t given me a good reading on how Kinnear plays Vermeil. Has anyone who has seen the premiere got any thoughts? The film nationwide opens today.

UPDATE: “Invincible” was by the far the number one earner at the box office this weekend, at $17 million. The next-highest earning film was “Beerfest” at around $6.5 million. Thanks to Risky Biz for the info.

Back in April, Netflix sued Blockbuster for patent infringement. The lawsuit was originally filed in response to Blockbuster’s development of an online rental model (Blackhacker makes the interesting point that it is tough to determine what exactly is being patented here–the idea of maintaining a queue?). In response, Blockbuster filed an anti-trust suit, on the grounds that Netflix was establishing a monopoly on the online movie rental business. Apparently the suit was filed on the grounds that Netflix failed to reveal some of its earlier patented technology while applying for a new patent.

According to a link from Hacking Netflix, Netflix’s attempts to have this countersuit thrown out of court have been refused by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup. The drama continues.

According to a report from Did-It, spending on primetime broadcast TV has gone up by 40% in the last decade, while audience size has dropped by 50%. The result is an increase in spending-per-consumer that is likely to scare off many advertisers. The study cited by the post also predicts a one-third drop off in the effectiveness of TV as an advertising medium by 2010, as compared with 1990.

Looks as if the onslaught of quality cable programming, as well as the widespread adoption of cable and satellite TV, has finally taken its toll on the networks. Taking myself as a tiny sample, I can’t say that this surprises me. I don’t remember the last time I watched a non-sports network show on a regular basis.