“Friends” social networking feature helps boost Netflix`s subscriber tally

via InternetRetailer.com

Although it pioneered online DVD rentals, Netflix Inc. has had to keep the innovation flowing to deal with growing competition. Its latest venture: the “Friends” social networking feature to build its number of subscribers. “The response has been extraordinary,” CEO Reed Hastings tells Internet Retailer.

Netflix launched the Friends feature last month as a way to build on its base of more than 2 million subscribers and fend off mounting competition from Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Walmart.com, Blockbuster Entertainment Inc. and others, Hastings says.

Although Netflix has long posted film reviews written by customers, its Friends feature organizes reviews and other personal information related to individual subscribers, allowing other subscribers to choose movie reviews and recommendations from people with common interests, Hastings says.

“We started with a couple hundred Friends users, and it’s been growing as much as 15% per day,” Hastings says. “As subscribers start using Friends and invite others into their personal network, including some who are already Friends members and some who aren’t, more people are becoming Netflix subscribers.”