Watch Out iTunes! Netflix is back!
I have to say that I kinda forgot about Netflix over the Summer. It’s not that I have ran out of queue items, have gotten sick of movies, or forgot to update my credit card. It’s just that Netflix has lost it’s appeal somewhat. Nothing new has really happened in the Netflix world, well until I discovered some new Heroes episodes several days ago! To those that do not know, Netflix is an online movie rental business. They do not have a physical store to rent movies, but rather all your movie selections and transactions are done over their simple and intuitive website. The only problem was that you needed to wait several days to receive your movie via postal mail- no biggie! "Beware Netflix, this will cause others to hate!"
Blockbuster, one of Netflix’s direct competitors, stepped it up and started offering the same service as Netflix, with one added benefit: you can return and exchange your movies at the retail store! Great for Blockbuster, but horrible for the Flixster. So, Netflix in return decided to partner up with Microsoft’s Silverlight technology to stream movies over the Internet. Take that BlockBuster! Essentially, Netflix was able to beat Blockbuster at their game by allowing users to "exchange" movies instantaneously! Well, Netflix did a great job in concept, however the selection of movies that a user could stream were fairly limited, dated and lame to be honest. Additionally, searching for "streaming only" movies and videos on the Netflix website still leaves something to be desired.
In one of my last attempts to use their streaming service I realized that one of my favorite TV shows, Heroes, was in the streaming selection. What surprised me more was the fact that Season 2, which is just starting to air, is available shortly after the broadcast airing! This made me wonder about a shift that maybe accruing. Apple, who prides themselves in having a gigantic collection of digital media, lost the rights to sell Heroes, Season 2 for $1.99 per episode. Now, I can enjoy the entire series of Heroes and rent movies for two months and pay the same price Apple Store would have charged my to buy the entire Season 2 of Heroes! Is this yet another great return of Netflix? I hope so!
