Netflix, get it together

In three years of using Netflix the service seems to be getting crappier. The recommendation engine still sucks, the new “smart” rating is awful, the video streaming service still has no selection, and I still can’t find movies to watch.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve recommended Netflix to dozens of people since I started using it. It’s convenient. Also, Netflix has done some alright things. They’ve slowly improved the queue. It works well now. You can reorder by dragging and drop. Also, when you mouse-over a movie you’re presented a useful pop-up that gives you the nice summary of the video that makes it mostly unnecessary to click through to the video’s page. Also, the interim view presented when a video is added to queue isn’t completely annoying anymore. Finally, in general, the site is aesthetically pleasing and fairly usable.

When I did go to brick and motor video rental stores it was really easy to find movies. You walk down the new release wall and grab vids that jumped out. Also, I could always rely on the independent and documentary vid section for regular choice picks. And in a pinch, you just ask the dude at the counter. After you get a feel for their tastes they’re always helpful. Lastly, the video rental store would always have a board that listed the new releases from the current week and the last week. Sure those would always be the big budget Hollywood flicks, but those make my wife happy.

My Top 5 Suggestions to Netflix

1). Replicate the video store experience as much as possible. Let me see New Releases from this week and make it possible to walk backward in time by weekly releases. Show the box covers! This would, at least, keep my wife happy by helping me to blend in those big budget flicks. Also, you could have an employees’ picks corner. I always checked these out in the video store. Moreover, it would give a face to your company and create an emotional connection.

2). Stop wasting your time on that useless closed social network site you’ve been developing. I don’t give a damn about this. Nor does anyone else I know. If you want to help me share ratings and be social make it possible for me to export my ratings to hReview formatted blog posts and/or give me an RSS feed of the movies I rate! Simple. You could even slap in a little “Netflix” logo in the post/feed. I would expect it! I don’t need to tell you how much this would improve the visibility of your service. Also, more folks would want to use your service because you’re helping your users to share with their friends. This would be awesome.

3). Launch a wiki! Make it public. Not anonymously editable, but public. Each movie in inventory should have a wiki page pre-seeded it with content. Maybe only allow subscribers to edit and registered non-subscribers comment. Create an incentive to register. Key point: anyone can view.

4). I hate that stupid “smart” rating where you think you know how I’ll rate a movie. You’re always wrong. Let me turn that crap off in my settings. It’s awful and it just wastes my time because it forces me to mouse-over everytime to see what everyone else has rated the movie.

5). Let me share information with friends that aren’t Netflix users! It’s so lame you’re only letting me share stuff with other Netflix subscribers. Open up! It’s in your own best interest. In addition to suggestion #2 make it 1-click for me to email my friends info about a movie and my rating of it. This too is another way for you to advertise your service and the drive traffic to the wiki site.

Finally, develop a decent recommendation algorithm! I guess that $1 Million contest Netflix ran to develop a better algorithm was never paid out.

Netflix Hacks
It’s always bothered me that Netflix only gives you the ability to rate 1-5. I want to be able to rate 3.5 or whatever. Now I can. Also, I want to see the box covers in my queue. Now I can. There are greasemonkey scripts that enables both of these and much more. Go to www.userscripts.com, install greasemonkey, and search for Netflix. You’ll find a bunch of wonderful Netflix scripts that make the service better.