RSS (follow up) and Videos

I really like that RSS video... and in a moment of utter madness i just decided to insert it into the Netflix website. Stuck it into the FAQ on RSS. Why not?! (To give you a little glimpse of working at Netflix, this kind of behavior is rather encouraged). It was your feedback about the video that convinced me to see what would happen. I didn't even know we could insert videos into some of those FAQs...

http://www.netflix.com/FAQ?faqtrkid=1&p_search_text=rss

So it got me thinking: are there other little videos that could be made that would help newbies understand elements of the Netflix service? What do you think needs explanation? I thought i'd put this out there: go ahead and make some of your own helpful short videos (put them on YouTube), and if they are good, i'll put 'em in some FAQs. (If they're not -- i'm certain everyone of your blog-reading pals will make sure you know it.)

RSS Explained

Saw this hand-made video online earlier this week (and inexplicably spent some time chatting with the creator this morning here at this Gnomedex conference); I quite enjoyed its explanation and wondered what y'all thought of it. If you didn't already know anything about RSS does this explain it? If you already do, would you show this to a friend? Do you think we should embed this (or a video like it) on the RSS page at Netflix to help explain this kind of feature? What do you think of video in general to explain things about the Netflix site or experience?Anyway, check it out:

Movie Privacy (the sequel to "Hiding Movies")

After your overwhelming response a few weeks ago about keeping your Friends from seeing those pesky embarrassing titles (something with Teletubbies comes to mind, or it could be that lowbrow drive in classic...) we wondered whether there was anything we could do in the short-term to ease the suffering. Every time we had started working on the right implementation in the past, it seemed like the project got tabled for something more pressing. But today your trusty web engineer Mikey showed me that he had built a quick-n-dirty version of Movie Privacy. It's not pretty, but i have to admit, it does the trick.

So, in a rather unNetflix-like way, we're just going to release it to Friends users in the next week or so. Let's see if this finally allows you to connect to folks you know slightly less well (or maybe too well), and for whom you absolutely needed the ability to hide some titles. We've all read your comments and suggestions for how best to implement this. Trust me: this isn't that. It's not that we're not hearing your suggestions, it's just i was interested in getting this in front of you quickly. So here's how it will work:

In the Friends area, look at the second navigation bar; along with the usual "Invite Friends" and links to this blog, we've added RSS FEEDS (per our earlier conversation) and MOVIE PRIVACY. The Movie Privacy page couldn't be much simpler. It provides a list of all the movies you've rented or have in your Queue (or At Home), all in alphabetical order, and for each movie, you have the option to make it private. That's it. Click "private" and its invisible to any Friend. Does it help? I think it's a start.

PS: It will not, at first, list your RATED movies. Just RENTED and in QUEUE. Let's see how this goes. ALSO: The more movies you've seen or have in your queue, the longer this page will take to load up -- so please be patient. It could take 10-15 seconds perhaps for you power-users. PPS: RSS Feeds are not currently filtered for Private Movies.

RSS Feeds and Your Reviews

Like y'all, we've noticed a few strange things in the RSS feeds. As far as we can tell (so far), these are problems on the receiving end, as all looks fine on the sending end. Different browsers, websites and blogs handle these feeds in different ways, and clearly some do a better job than others. Still, we're exploring some of these issues and hope to get them handled quickly. Looking ahead, we're adding two key RSS functions in the next few weeks.

RSS REVIEWS. You'll soon be able to feed all your reviews to your own sites, which maybe easier than copy/pasting your reviews between sites.

RSS CUSTOM LISTS. You'll also be able to feed any individual custom list you've created out to your own site. At first glance this might seem lame, but i think there are some cool applications possible, particularly if you combine the feeds of Reviews and some lists.

Let's say you're an organization. Maybe USC Film School. Maybe a Pilates Club. Maybe a Neighborhood Association. Or a magazine. You've got a website and your own members and everything. Some of your members may be Netflix members too, but some may not. Regardless, you can use your Netflix profile (or create a special sub-account with its own queue) to some special advantage. From this sub-account, add your iconic avatar (a logo or something clear at this small size), and a nickname that works for you (organization name, most likely). Then review movies that are relevant to your members. Make Custom Lists that are relevant. (Think: Best Computer Generated Movies, Films We're Watching This Month, Movies Shot in Baltimore...) and feed these reviews and specific lists to your site.

This way, when Netflix members are looking at a movie, they can see the review from your org. And the members of your org can see all your reviews at your orgs website. It's a nice dynamic. I'd like to hear about anyone using the reviews and lists this way. Any particularly inspiring examples might get showcased here. Anyway, I'll let you know as the release of these features gets closer. In the meantime, just know we have a little work to do still on cleaning up the RSS feeds. Happy Fourth.