Comments on The Official Netflix Blog: Next Weeks' Release

I have Firefox as well as all the hundreds and tho...

2008-08-28T18:06:00.000-07:00

I have Firefox as well as all the hundreds and thousands of users.. and I think your Netflix instant play is fantastic, although means how you are working on Firefox capabilities with your instant play is good. But You should really figure out a way too make this work and soon.. Means how Firefox is far more advanced then any web browser in history. This should have been developed before releasing just for you basic Internet Explorer Because i am unhappy with a standard default browser as well as over half the United States disables IE on there home pc. So no one is going too enable it just too watch your Netflix entertainment. This will make your service very successful so instead of working with the LQ Mac using benefits. You should really advance your technology because someone will take your place soon. Just some advice. Because i have this same exact service and it is in competition with yours and is now available with Firefox. Oh and i released it for all web browsing utilities.

Los Angeles is a big city. Any way to distinguish ...

2008-01-20T21:13:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles is a big city. Any way to distinguish neighborhoods? What we're watching in Echo Park is probably much different than what others are watching in West Hollywood.

Hey, has anybody else looked at darkko's profile? ...

2007-08-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

Hey, has anybody else looked at darkko's profile? This guy is 32 years old, and has nothing better to do than spend all of his time trying to post 'flix reviews an cry about his (lack of) results on a blog.

Way to be pathetic!

why aren't my reviews being published? they comple...

2007-08-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

why aren't my reviews being published? they completely follow guidlines. i have not had a review published after over a month of trying every other day.

love the friends features on community page

2007-08-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

love the friends features on community page

EMERGENCY! I just got a Sim% 44 in my Magnificent ...

2007-08-17T09:20:00.000-07:00

EMERGENCY! I just got a Sim% 44 in my Magnificent Four box who gave the 'Wedding Singer' 5 stars! Please check those algorithms!

I asked a non-blogging friend to check-out the Com...

2007-08-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

I asked a non-blogging friend to check-out the Community page, as instructed. Now I, and I alone it seems, really like the random reviews, since it's a great way to break out of the box that one's like minded friends and Netflix recommendations inevitably lock one in. But anyway, here's what she said (and I quote):

"I really do not like the sliding reviews. It would be nice if the rate of descent was controlled by the user instead of the website".

I hate the Latest Reviews feature. Half of it is f...

2007-08-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

I hate the Latest Reviews feature. Half of it is for stuff I'd never watch. If we're forced to have it, why not tailor it to match the recommended movies at least? Thanks

Thanks for replying to Baff, Todd. It's very reass...

2007-08-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Thanks for replying to Baff, Todd. It's very reassuring to know that you guys are indeed out there, however often we're assured that you are. Just a thought on the new review escalator. How about making them rateable (helpful/unhelpful)? That might encourage us all to keep 'em short and sweet, because I doubt that many people are bothering to let people finish their thought by going to the full review.

@BaffThanks, Baff for picking up a bug on the Rate...

2007-08-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

@Baff
Thanks, Baff for picking up a bug on the Rate Recent Returns feature-- it was supposed to give a No Opionion button (which doesn't have an effect on your ratings history) instead of Not Interested. Expect to see this fixed during the next week.

I tend to rate movies as soon as I watch them, so ...

2007-08-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

I tend to rate movies as soon as I watch them, so having the reminder show up on the main page (and now in my queue as well) isn't usually all that helpful. Occasionally it does serve as a nice reminder if I forget to put in a rating, but more often than not it's just an annoyance. I don't mind the box showing up once, but if I explicitly hit the close button without rating it, there's a reason I didn't rate it yet and I don't want to be asked about it again. Specifically, I've recently come across two different scenarios where I don't want to rate a movie right away, and I really wish the website would quit bugging me about them:

1) I've started using Watch It Now to check out some TV shows. However, once I've watched one episode from a season, I start getting pestered relentlessly to rate the whole season. It would be nice if you had a way to recognize that I've at least tried to watch every episode before asking me for a rating. You should be able to do this pretty easily since I have to request rights to view each episode.

2) I've gotten a couple of movies that have either been mislabeled or damaged to the point that I can't watch them. In those cases, please don't ask me to rate the movie. I consider it a bit of a tease to not be able to watch the movie I thought I was getting (no fault of your own), but it's downright taunting to ask me to rate something you know I wasn't able to watch. Again, this should be pretty easy to determine if I report a disc as either mislabeled or damaged.

I LOVE what you guys are doing with the site.I've ...

2007-08-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

I LOVE what you guys are doing with the site.

I've also noticed (maybe they've been there for a while) the personalized RSS feeds. While this might sound kind of lame, I want to create a widget (via Widgetbox.com or something like that) sharing the Netflix love on my MySpace profile, under the "my movies" section. But I'd like to share my FAVORITE movies--e.g. top-rated movies--instead of movies in my queue or movies at home (both a little too private). And I didn't see an RSS feed for that.

Anything like that in the works? Just the RSS thing itself would be cool, but if Netflix created various widgets folks could use on their Facebook, blog, MySpace, etc.--that would be very cool.

Last.fm has one of the best UIs I've seen to designing/embedding widgets... you can customize the widget color, the feed info, etc. It's really easy to design a widget, and easy to get the code to embed or even directly embed in the major blogging/social network platforms. Check out http://www.last.fm/widgets/

Keep up the great work! At the risk of gushing--I love being a Netflix customer! You guys are great!

About the new "Rate Your Recent Returns" block add...

2007-08-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

About the new "Rate Your Recent Returns" block added to the queue page, it says "Didn't Watch It? Rate "No Opinion"."

Uhh, you don't say how to do that since the only options are to rate it 1-5 stars or "not interested". Most people would likely assume that "not interested" = "no opinion", but you've said in this blog that "not interested" = slightly negative, and 3 stars = no opinion.

Otherwise, I am liking that new feature, especially the fact that it can be minimized!!

@Michael - you said Minireviews: still pondering h...

2007-08-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

@Michael - you said Minireviews: still pondering how best to execute. not on the short term plan as some far more interesting things preceed it (you'll have to trust me here, or just be angry, your choice).

I've already posted my feelings on this issue (several times) so I won't bore you with a rehash, except to say that I'm not alone in my beliefs. Several people have made similar posts to mine, to the point that I think it's probably one of the most requested features on this blog (behind 1/2 stars and finding people with high sim%, which have both been explained). Maybe we're just a really vocal minority, but I think there are plenty of like-minded people out there.

Since you didn't really post details of what's coming down the pipe (not that I'd expect you to publicly reveal that anyway), I will have to trust that you really are working on "far more interesting things." The problem is, I can't imagine anything that I'd want more than getting mini-reviews back. In fact (and this isn't in any way intended to belittle the great work you and your team have been doing), if I could give up everything that's been done on the Friends/Community front over the past year in exchange for the return of mini-reviews, I'd do so in a heartbeat.

Michael... thanks for responding! Yes, I think it ...

2007-08-14T11:49:00.000-07:00

Michael... thanks for responding! Yes, I think it would be great if all recent friends activity was rolled into the notebook. If you did that, however, here's what I think would be REALLY great:

Allow the Notebook to be filtered for individual friends or for type of activity. So, I could leave it unfiltered and just see all the activity of all my frieds, or I could just see all the recent activity for my brother, or I could see just all the queue adds from all my friends, or I could see just the notes written by my dad, etc.

I think you get the idea, and I think that would make the Notebook a very robust feature without complicating it too much.

I love the "recent activity" friends feature!! Th...

2007-08-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

I love the "recent activity" friends feature!! Thank you!

Michael: OK, I admit I totally missed the part in ...

2007-08-14T04:54:00.000-07:00

Michael: OK, I admit I totally missed the part in your post about the Recent Activity not showing ratings. I assure you I did read it, but it's been a few days and I guess I forgot all the little details. But I should have re-read before posting. Sorry about that.

Now, on to my comment about Loved/Hated - I felt you were unfair in your response here. All you say in your post is that this feature "isn’t updating properly" and "is just slightly better than a placeholder", but you never tell us why, so how was I supposed to know that the no-popup thing was known, and not a true bug? I read plenty carefully; I'm just not a mind-reader. I don't mind being called out when justified, but in this case...

SOME little soap box drama we have going here! In ...

2007-08-14T00:28:00.000-07:00

SOME little soap box drama we have going here! In another post WG aka TK said that he/she didn't want to reward the reviewer with additional eyeballs on the slanderous post by giving out details on the blog, but that customer service had all the info in centiplicate after many weeks of calling, and assumed that Michael could get all the info he needed from them. Hope that helps.

It looks like waving goodbye is never coming back,...

2007-08-13T22:50:00.000-07:00

It looks like waving goodbye is never coming back, but I just wanted to add that he/she seems to lack all common sense. He didn't know to post the movie title or user name for the offending review? How else would you find it?

It's really annoying to have the quiz on both the ...

2007-08-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

It's really annoying to have the quiz on both the community page and the friends page. In all honesty, I don't care for the quiz at all to have it taking up space on two pages is a bit much.

Shaun - you don't miss a trick do you? We have a w...

2007-08-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

Shaun - you don't miss a trick do you? We have a whole department here that does pretty much what you just did... Well, you caught me in one of those moods, so here goes:

1. Showing the rating in the Friends Activity? okay, this is your bad. I discussed this in the post. Read it again.

2. Not a bug. Just a tweak we'll need to get in at some point. You're right, it will improve it.

3. Also not a bug. We only show 5-star movies of people you don't know (that is: reviewers). I'm not sure when i'll get around to expanding this. I also agree that having more would be interesting, but I presently feel that 5-star films give you a good snapshot of a person...

4. No "back of box" info on the Most Loved/Hated thing. Shaun - got to read these posts more carefully. There is a lot more work to do on these Most Loved/Hated presentations.

AND for Amanda: With luck, the thing you want is for all this Recent Activity to flow on into the NOTEBOOK page, so you'll have the whole chronology there (and not just the notes sent/received). I think the Notebook would be better if it had more of these details anyway. Would that work?

Hey guys. I really like how the community page is ...

2007-08-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. I really like how the community page is shaping up! I think the animation for the scrolling reviews is a huge improvement.

The first suggestion that comes to mind is for the recent activity area. I love having it, but it would be nice if we could page through recent activity, rather than only seeing the first page. I have 18 Netflix friends... so if one friend goes online and adds 10 movies to their queue, it pushes all other recent activity off the main page and there is no way to see it.

1. I find the sliding reviews annoying. It was ...

2007-08-13T20:53:00.000-07:00

1. I find the sliding reviews annoying. It was scrolling too fast before but now the top movie seems to hold still while others slide under it - just creepy looking to me. I'm using Foxfire so it may not look the same on IE.

2. Under the Members Top 10 Lists (silly name - better would be Members Custom Lists) it shows:
List name, (# of movies), a date

Rather than the date which seems meaningless could you have the % similar to me? I would then have a reason to check the lists out.

3. I'd really like to customize the page, too. I'd remove Friend's quiz and the Local Favorites. To me the local favorites should be a list of maybe the top 20 movies rented in my area. Right now it shows only 4 with the cover picture. It just takes up a lot of space that could be used for a long list.

4. I agree that having a search feature to find high % members similar to you would be excellent.

For the most part I like the new changes. A coupl...

2007-08-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

For the most part I like the new changes. A couple comments though:

1. I love the concept of Recent Activity, but when it comes to showing the fact that a friend rated a film, it would be REALLY helpful to show the rating there, so I don't have to click each movie and scroll down to the ratings section to see what I'm looking for.

2. I think there may be a bug in the Recent Activity area. For example, earlier today it said one of my friends had queued "NewsRadio: Season 5 (3-Disc Series)", then immediately below, were 3 entries listing each disc as queued. I'm guessing you'd want to either show one or the other in this case. Just FYI...

3. In the "Similar to You" area, when you click the picture to see similarity, is it intended behavior that it only lets you see their 5-star-rated movies?

4. In the Loved/Hated area, is it intended behavior that when you mouse over the movie's picture, you don't get the typical pop-up with info, etc.?

Most of these are pretty minor, I just wanted to make sure they were known. All in all, I like the direction things are going. Thanks and keep it up.

What I would like to see is a way to set what page...

2007-08-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

What I would like to see is a way to set what page comes up when I click the Community button. Instead of the general community page I would prefer the friends page to be displayed by default.