
Introducing Netflix Social - zrail
http://blog.netflix.com/2013/03/introducing-netflix-social.html?m=1
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mortenjorck
At long last, over three years after its ignominious removal, Netflix Friends
makes its return.

I don't think I really want to use this, though. I'm cautious about what
automatic data I allow into Facebook (I'm sure they're already inferring
enough from my friends), and while ironically I wouldn't really care if my
viewing habits were automatically shared with my friends, I don't really want
that data accumulating in Facebook's graph portrait of me.

[edit]

I get that sharing with your friends doesn't happen unless you opt in, but the
way it's described, it's not clear if that default state is "all activity is
sent to Facebook but not posted to your timeline" or "no activity is sent to
Facebook at all."

~~~
freefrancisco
Good point, I want to see what my Netflix friends are watching for ideas on
what to watch, and I want to share selected things I liked. But I don't
necessarily want Netflix to automatically tell the world that I just watched
"Giant Zombie Time-Traveling Alien Nazi Wasps" because I was bored and there
was nothing else good around.

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nollidge
FTFA:

> By default, sharing will only happen on Netflix.

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damoncali
This is the opposite of what I want (I just want to watch TV - it's sort of my
antisocial indulgence). Three things I do want, though:

Get the shows my kids watch out of my suggestions. It's not that hard - there
is already a kids section. Keep them separate.

Get better movies. I would be willing to double or tripple my fee to get more
good movies and shows.

Live Sports - I'd pay a lot for this, considering it's really the only thing
that keeps my Cable TV around.

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jerf
"Get better movies. I would be willing to double or tripple my fee to get more
good movies and shows."

I've found Netflix streaming subscription + iTunes/Amazon for selected
purchases/rentals to be a cost-effective combination, since neither iTunes nor
Amazon have any sort of up-front payment to get in. (Amazon Prime's videos are
generally a subset of Netflix's, at least the ones I care about, so I don't
count that.) Sure, Netflix isn't getting my money, but, _shrug_.

Still no cost-effective solution for live sports, IMHO.

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malyk
The various streaming packages are pretty good for live sports IF you live
outside your home teams region AND your team isn't featured on national
broadcasts often (applies to the NHL for sure, not sure about the others).

NHL Game Center Live - %149 for the year in normal years IIRC MLB.TV - $129
for the year NBA League Pass - $99 NFL Game Pass - $149 (only on PS3?)

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whaevr
NO, NO, NO! My response on reading the article title. Why the hell does
everything have to be socially linked now a days? If I really want my friends
to watch something I recently discovered on Netflix or whatever, I'll tell
them about it. Not spam their facebook wall.

Focus more on getting more recent titles on instant stream and less on how I
can spam your website to my friends, who already all are using it heavily
anyway.

~~~
metageek
I agree, except for the "focus" bit. The engineers that worked on this alleged
feature would not have been much help signing new content distribution deals.

(Well. I'm generalizing. I'm an engineer, and I know _I_ wouldn't be.)

~~~
whaevr
Right, the focus bit was more or less aimed at Netflix.. management I suppose?
So something like "stop deciding we need social features implemented and
perhaps use said time and effort towards getting more distribution deals
signed"

I was legitimately upset when I wrote that comment and not thinking the
clearest hah

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apawloski
From what I understand, Netflix had some particularly difficult hoops to jump
through before they could implement this. Not the least of which was getting
federal legislation passed by Congress [1].

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/26/netflix-social-
shar...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/26/netflix-social-sharing-
bill_n_2367385.html)

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alexobenauer
Non-mobile version: [http://blog.netflix.com/2013/03/introducing-netflix-
social.h...](http://blog.netflix.com/2013/03/introducing-netflix-social.html)

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freefrancisco
Netflix also needs a "share with your friends how you watched the last season
of this show which is not in Netflix yet" feature.

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AUmrysh
netflix needs to add co-watching where you can join someone else's watching
session in real time and comment/chat about it with them like is in the xbox
360 version.

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chenster
I've never tried co-watch. Can you enlighten me with your past experience with
that? Presumably, it's great for watching live events. For watching a TV or
movies, how would that be practical? Can you only watch together with your
friends or you can do that with random people?

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chc
Why would you want to do it with random people?

My family does a sort of "ghetto co-watching" all the time, where they'll
phone somebody up and say, "Hey, want to watch Foo? OK, start it playing …
now!" I know lots of people who do that sort of thing. That's who co-watching
is for — people who want to watch something together but not necessarily make
a trip to somebody's house.

~~~
simcop2387
My SO and I would do that fairly constantly with a few TV shows when I was
living across the country. Making that trip every week for an hour of TV and
talking was getting expensive :)

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tomjen3
This isn't really useful. Netflix needs more content, not more 'features' that
only benefit the company.

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driverdan
I'm so sick of companies connecting to Facebook to steal my info and spam my
friends. I guess people must want to do this but I can't understand why.

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albertoavila
That's weird, I'm on Mexico and we've had those features for several weeks
now. While you are watching a film you can choose to not share a specific
title. I've seen the feature both on the PC and on the PS3.

Maybe they did their test drive with the non-us version?

EDIT: Nevermind, i read further down on the comments how that feature was
removed previously from the us version due to legal reasons.

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amykhar
I'm still not seeing the social settings options in Netflix. Perhaps not
rolled out to everybody yet.

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barranger
In the article it specifically states that it's rolling out this week, and you
may not get it till the end of the week

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barranger
I begrudgingly understand the delta in content from region to region due to
licensing deals. But can anyone explain to me why they would do the same with
functionality that wouldn't fall under any such licensing deals?

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mgillett
I'm pretty sure it has to do with local laws covering disclosure of viewing
records. The reason this is now possible in the US is that Netflix just
managed to get Congress pass an amendment to the VPPA
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act>). This feature
disappeared three years ago because someone sued them over an alleged
violation of this law.

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parbo
Hmm, I'm pretty sure we've had these features in Scandinavia since Netflix
launched here.

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rgbrgb
Wow, please fix that pixelated header image!

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zevyoura
Remove the query string from the URL to get the desktop version.

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circa
kind of reminds me of the site movies.io - they stripped the torrents and now
its a great site for keeping watchlists.

