
Netflix's tail massage - westwardho
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2009/09/netflixs_tail_m.php
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patio11
There's another reason to do this, beyond Wolverine DVDs costing more than My
Little Pony DVDs: inventory utilization. The demand curve for a new release
goes something like this: BIG FREAKING SPIKE, two weeks pass, long-tail until
the sequel is released. To accommodate peak demand, Netflix would have to do
what Blockbuster does: order a metric truckload of Wolverine, then either let
it suck up shelf space or dispose of it somehow after the spike was over.
Alternatively, they could just not accommodate peak demand, and have users
perpetually ticked off that they can "never watch anything I want to watch".

I use one of the Japanese analogs to Netflix and this is the #1 complaint
everyone has with the service. You're lucky to be able to watch a new release
within a month of them getting it, which sort of defeats the purpose now
doesn't it. (Note that they offer plenty of UI features Netflix doesn't which
tend to exacerbate this, such as "Sort by Popularity", "Sort by Release Date",
and "Most Popular Recently Released Movies". They also have "Sort by
Availability", which is essentially "Show me popular new releases from 2
months ago where you now practically can't give away the DVDs.")

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chancho
> To accommodate peak demand, Netflix would have to do what Blockbuster does:
> order a metric truckload of Wolverine, then either let it suck up shelf
> space or dispose of it somehow after the spike was over

Or just burn more copies. The cost of a disc is probably less than the
postage. But they'd have to get a license for that, which leads back to same
reason: studios charge more for popular movies. Renting good movies on Netflix
is hard for the same reason it's hard on iTunes, which has no inventory
problem.

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jrockway
Netflix doesn't even need to burn discs, they already have the video streaming
infrastructure in place.

The studios don't want people to watch their movies. They want people to pay
for the discs.

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tlb
And? Of course popular movies are in high demand, so the rental queue is
longer. They avoid showing you movies that would cause a long wait.

The movies on Netflix's list are probably better than the new releases. In
fact, the real manipulation is the idea of new releases, that half the demand
should be for this season's movies. The actual best movies of all time are
probably not on this week's best sellers list. It's a Hollywood marketing
artifact: because buzz causes a superlinear advertising conversion rate, it
works best to promote movies in short bursts. New releases also skew revenue
from rental stores towards Hollywood (since rental stores have to buy enough
for peak demand) so you can't blame Hollywood for doing it.

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icefox
After hacking on the netflix contest it was fun to sign up for netflix and
give the recommendation system a try. After putting in several hundred movies
I now typically only choose recommendations that it thinks I would rate a 4 or
5. Most are good and rank about what they think I will. This includes plenty
of older movies including some silent films which I absolutely loved after
seeing them where before I would have never even considered watching them. On
the flip side the brand new movie of the month that I _must see_ and added to
the top of my que I end up ranking much lower on average. So I would very much
agree, on a given week I don't want to watch the new dvd/movie that just came
out as it probably isn't that good compared to the top 500 of the last 100
years which I have only started going through.

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gjm11
_I now typically only choose recommendations that it thinks I would rate a 4
or 5._ : Probably a very sensible policy, and I bet a lot of other people do
the same. Unfortunately, this seems likely to cause some skew in the
recommendations since the recommendations engine (and the people working to
improve it) will seldom find out about any severe underpredictions it makes.

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Eliezer
That makes 100,000 companies manipulating you to be more conformist and 1
company manipulating you to be less conformist.

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ZeroGravitas
People really like to attack Chris Anderson and his lightweight business-IT
theories. I don't really understand why.

My best guess is that he's a pretty good self-promoter, and as with Apple,
people who can't promote themselves can get into the spotlight by attacking
someone who is already there.

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jwesley
I think it's that his "lightweight business-IT theories" aren't recognized as
such.

