Friends without Netflix

Do you have any friends who still haven't tried Netflix? I was astonished to learn that my nurse at the doctor's office still hasn't signed up. I will not rest until she does.

I think it might be ignorance. I have to explain to them how it works. It helps if I show them the envelope, because it's hard for folks to imagine how easy it is. They think they have to get a stamp and address the envelope and buy envelopes, and all that old-school stuff. Even when I tell them it's postage-paid both ways, they are skeptical. They think there's a catch.

I also think it's hard work for some people to find stuff to watch. With TV, it's passive. You watch whatever is on, or you hit one button on the remote. Netflix requires a bit of thought and more effort than switching on the TV. You have to go online, look at pictures, and click a button. If you're really ambitious, you read the description and reviews.

Even with Roku, you have to decide what to watch. The TV doesn't decide for you. People can be paralyzed by choice. Well, Netflix solves that problem by suggesting movies. All you have to do is rate movies. Is that so hard?

I look at some of my Netflix Friends, and I'm frustrated at how few movies they've rated. Or maybe they really haven't seen that many. They must be the people with the social lives and beautiful lawns.

Dude has over a thousand Netflix friends!

I just made Robowriter a Fave, which means I'm a Fan, not a Friend, since he's a stranger to me. He has rated 13,132 titles on Netflix, written 486 reviews, made 148 lists, and he is 50% similar to me. His reviewer rank is an astonishingly low 14. My favorite thing about Fave Robowriter, is his exhaustive lists in which he categorizes movies very specifically. For example, he's making a list of all movies in which the Wilhelm Scream is used.

My highest ranked friend

I've been checking out the new Community features on Netflix.com. Now our Netflix profiles include a ranking, based on how "influential" we are at using our reviews and lists to get other folks to watch more movies. My rank is 28,188, which isn't bad, considering how many millions of us there are. But then I saw my friend Walt D in LV, whose rank is 838! I have to get busy writing more reviews.

I met Walt through this blog. He is always sending us, his Netflix friends, interesting Movie Notes on everything he sees.

Here are the stats from his profile:

Member since June 2007
rank 838
72% similar to NetflixFan
19 friends
235 reviews
3 lists

Have you noticed your rank? What do you think of it?

Official Netflix blog launched

Netflix has finally launched an official blog, but with a unique focus. Instead of being about the company, or the rental experience, or about movies, The Netflix Community blog is devoted only to the Community features of Netflix (Friends, Profiles, custom lists, etc) and we who use them. It's where you can go to discover new features or changes to existing ones, and give feedback.

Unlike Hacking Netflix, or this blog, the Netflix Community blog is written by folks who work for Netflix, "by the team that is building the social elements of the Netflix site," so it's the horse's mouth.


Via Hacking Netflix

1001 movies in my queue

If you are a faithful reader or one of my Netflix Friends, you know I have an unusual queue. Everything in my queue is in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, in chronological order according to North American release date. Trying to see all the movies in this book is a fun scavenger hunt, like completing a collection. And it has greatly expanded my appreciation for all sorts of films.

When I started using this list in May 2004, I had seen about 200 of the titles in the book. Now I've seen 651. About 300 of them came from Netflix. Of the 349 left to see, 248 are in my Netflix queue. Of those, 242 have been released and 10 are "release date unknown."

I bought the 2001 edition of the book in 2004, when a couple hundred of the titles weren't on DVD, so I occasionally have go back and re-check Netflix for the ones I've had to skip over, to see if they have since been released. I start from the beginning of the book and look for every skipped title on Netflix. I discovered several that (for some unknown reason) weren't in my queue, but Netflix has them. These, for example:

Pickpocket
In the Year of the Pig
The Sorrow and the Pity
Dersu Uzala

There are nearly 100 films I still can't find anywhere on DVD or VHS. I have used the library, Nicheflix, Facets, Greencine, and Amazon.com. Some are out there, but too expensive to buy. I'd appreciate any suggestions you have. I don't want to buy them, if I can avoid it. If I buy them, I want to spend about the same price as a rental. I would pay $5 to rent from a bricks and mortar store whatever is not on Netflix. I pay Nicheflix and Facets about that much, plus about $3 shipping and handling. So I guess I'm willing to spend $5-10 on eBay or Amazon, for the titles on this list which I haven't seen.

The above photo is a view of the book with my 101 sticky notes indicating movies I cannot find on DVD.