• June 18th, 2013

    Netflix Will Launch In The Netherlands Later This Year As Its International Expansion Slows

    NETFLIX, INC. LOGO

    Netflix has announced that it will begin operating in The Netherlands later this year, further expanding its European footprint. The Netherlands, Netflix’s seventh European country, is a relatively small market for the streaming video service, but in keeping with Netflix’s more cautious approach to moving into new countries after its aggressive international expansion last year lost money. → Read More

    June 18th, 2013

    Battle For Family’s Streaming Dollars Heats Up Between Netflix & Amazon, With Netflix Families Debut & Kindle FreeTime Expansion

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    Following a bit of backlash arising from the loss of popular Viacom-owned children’s TV shows, Netflix today launched Netflix Families, which is essentially just a destination website designed to tout Netflix’s family fare. The site includes rows of Netflix recommendations for parents and kids, as well as tips on how to stream and other promotional content. → Read More

    June 11th, 2013

    Netflix Will Launch Multiple User Profiles This Summer To Keep Your Recommendations Pristine

    NETFLIX, INC. LOGO

    It’s a nuisance many Netflix users are familiar with–you log-on to watch something from the Criterion Collection, only to find that your recommendations are now littered with “Dora The Explorer” or “Say Yes To The Dress” because someone in your household with less erudite tastes in streaming entertainment used your account. Fortunately, you will soon be free of that problem after Netflix launches… → Read More

    June 4th, 2013

    Google TV Adds Redbox Instant By Verizon App, Pitting It Against Netflix On The Platform

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    Google has just announced via its official Google TV blog that Redbox Instant by Verizon is arriving on the platform today. The newly launched app provides Redbox subscribers access to streaming movie and TV content, depending on their subscription package, as well as purchase and rentals from the Instant store and the ability to reserve physical discs for pick-up at the closest Redbox kiosk. → Read More

    June 2nd, 2013

    Netflix CEO Reed Hastings On Arrested Development, Managing Content Licenses, And Coming Back From The Qwikster Debacle

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    In an interview at the D11 conference, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos talked about the company’s plans for more original programming, as well as its relationship to other content providers and distributors. → Read More

    June 1st, 2013

    Gillmor Gang: Wake Up Call

    The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — recorded early on a Thursday morning, flush with Apple CEO Tim Cook’s read-between-the-lines performance at D11. Cook took some 80 minutes to say very little, or so say the pundits and Wall Street spinners. But the Gang found plenty to decrypt, including thoughts on Apple TV, wearable computing, value… → Read More

    May 28th, 2013

    Despite Strong Early Numbers, Netflix Stock Drops After “Arrested Development” Debut; Parents Also Angry Over Lost Kids Shows

    NETFLIX, INC. LOGO

    Maybe Netflix’s original content isn’t quite ready yet, after all. Today, a spate of bad news for the streaming service: its “Arrested Development” reboot failed to impress TV critics, and shares fell 5 percent as a result this morning. Meanwhile, angry parents are giving Netflix hell for its decision to drop popular kids’ shows like “Dora the Explorer” and “SpongeBob Squarepants” from its network… → Read More

    May 26th, 2013

    New ‘Arrested Development’ Pulls Off The Geekiest Gag Ever, Confuses Much Of The Internet

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    New Arrested Development is here! Have you heard? I could probably fall back on an “Unless you’ve been living under a rock..” joke here, but I’m pretty sure they’ve got WiFi under rocks now.

    Anyway — if you’re just catching the first few episodes of the new season: Yeah, you saw what you think you saw. Yeah, it’s a gag. No, you’re not the only one that it confused. → Read More

    May 17th, 2013

    Now Netflix Is Promoting “Arrested Development” On Seamless.com

    Bluth_s Original Frozen Banana

    How do you market a hot new TV show without the benefit of commercial space that you can fill with network promos? Just ask Netflix. The company has come up with a number of clever marketing stunts to get the word out about the upcoming premiere of Arrested Development ranging from Easter eggs on Netflix.com to this month’s live frozen banana stand in New York, which was visited by hundreds. It… → Read More

    May 11th, 2013

    Gillmor Gang: Windows Too Late

    The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor — broke from the gate and never let up in a barnburner of a show about the post-Jobs era. Will Google assume the mantle of leadership from an aging Apple, or is this just an evolutionary step along across the stream of innovation triggered by the iPhone/iPad?

    There’s plenty of data on both sides of… → Read More

    April 29th, 2013

    Moviora Plays Ten Questions To Help You Pick A Flick

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    Whenever my friends and I get together for a movie party, the toughest part of the evening is collectively deciding what to watch. There’s always one person that shoots a good suggestion down with a curt, “I’m not in the mood for that”. Moviora is an app that aims to make that process a little easier. It’s a strange thing. Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video… → Read More

    April 22nd, 2013

    Netflix Says Fewer Than 8,000 People ‘Gamed’ Its Free Trials To Watch House Of Cards

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    Netflix released its first-quarter earnings report today, and the company saw another period of strong growth, adding more than 3 million streaming members, bringing its total to 36 million. Domestically, Netflix saw 2 million new streaming members, which was relatively equal compared to last quarter and up from 1.74 million in Q1 last year. → Read More

    April 22nd, 2013

    Netflix Beats Analyst Estimates, With 29.2 Million US Subscribers And $1 Billion In Q1 Revenue

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    Netflix reported positive first-quarter numbers, including revenues of $1.02 billion during the first three months of the year. The company also announced that it added 2 million domestic in the quarter, bringing the total number of subscribers to 29.2 million. → Read More

    April 19th, 2013

    All 13 Episodes Of Netflix’s Third Original Series, Hemlock Grove, Now Available To Stream

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    Netflix launched its most recent original series today, following Lillyhammer from last year and the David Fincher-created House of Cards. As with previous releases, all 13 of the episodes of Hemlock Grove arrive at the same time, so you can gorge yourself on a non-stop feast of guilty pleasure pretty much all weekend. → Read More

    April 15th, 2013

    Netflix Moves To Samsung ARM-Based Chromebooks, Thanks To Premium Video Extensions In HTML5

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    Premium video extensions in HTML5 are opening the door for Netflix to embrace a more standards-based format for video playback, but it’s doing so cautiously. The reason for Netflix’s use of Silverlight in the first place is due to its need to provide DRM and ensure that its users aren’t copying its content or displaying it in places where they’re not authorized to. → Read More

    April 9th, 2013

    Netflix Adds Landing Pages To Feature Original Series Hemlock Grove On Xbox, Web, iPad, PS3, & Wii

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    Netflix is quickly building a stable of its own original content, but those programs end up getting lumped in with all the movies and TV series that it’s licensed from other content providers. To combat this, Netflix is running landing pages on a wide range of devices to show off the new series that it’s investing in, with the next one being Eli Roth’s Hemlock Grove. → Read More

    April 4th, 2013

    Netflix Confirms 15 New Episodes Of Arrested Development Landing May 26 At 12:01 AM PT

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    Netflix has finally revealed exactly when we’ll be able to get our new Arrested Development fix: May 26, 2013 will see the debut of 15 new episodes of the Mitch Hurwitz-led series, which will go live in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Latin America, Brazil and the Nordics as of 12:01 AM Pacific Time. The series length is actually up one episode from earlier reports, so there’s even more new… → Read More

    April 2nd, 2013

    SEC Says Reed Hastings-Style Announcements On Facebook And Twitter Are Okay, If Investors Told To Look There

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    Following an investigation sparked by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ announcement that Netflix subscribers had passed the 1 billion hours viewed milestone, the SEC today announced that in specific circumstances, it can be okay to announce key company information and stats on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. The one caveat they stipulate is that investors must be primed to watch those… → Read More

    March 29th, 2013

    Bonobos’ SF Engineers Split Between NY Relocation And New Company Led By CTO Mike Hart

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    Bonobos‘ newly hired San Francisco engineering team is fracturing, but there’s no disaster. Bonobos CTO Mike Hart has departed the company to become a co-founder, along with Cory Hicks, of a brand-new business.

    After cooking up some hot new personalization technology at Bonobos, Hart and five other engineers from the team will be spinning out that technology into a standalone company separate… → Read More

    March 27th, 2013

    Netflix Goes Sci-Fi With Its Next Original Series, Sense8

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    Hot on the heels of Netflix’s original series House Of Cards, the company hasannounced that it will release a new sci-fi TV series to the platform called Sense8.

    The show is being developed under the guidance of the Wachowskis, who are responsible for smash hits like the Matrix series of films, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas and Speed Racer, as well as J. Michael Straczynski who is the creator… → Read More

    March 13th, 2013

    Um, That’s What My Kid Watches, Not Me – With User Profiles Still In Testing, Netflix’s Social Sharing Feature Makes No Sense

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    Great news. You’ll now know the viewing preferences of your friends’ kids on Netflix, thanks to the service’s foray into social sharing via opt-in Facebook integration, announced earlier this morning. Because the company rushed to launch the feature ahead of a product release which would allow family members and other shared account holders to set up their own profiles, that means parents will… → Read More

    March 13th, 2013

    Netflix Gets Social In The U.S. Thanks To Facebook Partnership, After Over A Year Of Lobbying And Lawmaking

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    Netflix today introduced Facebook integration for U.S. users, allowing subscribers who opt in to see what their friends have been watching and what they like best when logged into the service. The integration also allows users to post films or TV shows to their Facebook wall, as well as comment on their viewing activity. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings explained to Bloomberg that social is the key to… → Read More

    March 12th, 2013

    Arrested Development’s Mitch Hurwitz And Will Arnett On Taking Their Show To Netflix

    Will Arnett and Mitch Hurwitz on the Return of Arrested Development

    One of the big events coming up for comedy fans this spring will be the return of Arrested Development, which will debut its fourth season on Netflix after a long hiatus. Creator Mitch Hurwitz and star Will Arnett took a few minutes out of their busy lives to answer a few questions about the show. So what’s it like being a big star on TV and then going to the Internet instead? → Read More

    March 11th, 2013

    Netflix Launches Speed Index To Highlight The Best ISPs For Streaming

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    For the last few months now, Netflix regularly released an index of the fastest ISPs for streaming video. Today, the company launched a dedicated site for this data, the Netflix ISP Speed Index. The Speed Index includes data from many of the countries the service is currently available in, including the U.S., Mexico, Ireland, U.K.,Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Unsurprisingly, Google Fiber… → Read More

    March 8th, 2013

    Netflix Stops Issuing API Keys To New Developers, Effectively Ending Its Developer Program

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    Netflix just used the quiet Friday afternoon to announce that it is effectively ending its public developer program. Netflix will stop issuing API keys immediately and will not accept new API affiliates. The company will no longer offer a test environment for developer and its developer portal is already set to be read-only. Netflix’s OData catalog, which was never updated all that regularly… → Read More

    March 2nd, 2013

    Netflix’s Content-Marketing Secret Sauce Is Wrapped Up In ‘House Of Cards’

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    Editor’s note: Brandon Carter is a marketing manager at Outbrain, a content discovery platform on a mission to help readers find the most interesting content online.

    It’s been nearly impossible to consume any kind of media in the last two weeks without hearing about Netflix’s new original series “House of Cards.” With all 13 episodes released simultaneously to enable binge viewing and a… → Read More

    February 25th, 2013

    Shapes Of Things

    House of Cards

    Sure, there’s a second screen these days. But it’s not the one you might think. The second screen is the TV, where the decaying rules remain in force as network comedies atrophy and the fall season is rife with cancellation. The first screen is the mini, managing the push notification appointment calendar and relationships of the binge viewers as they kibitz, joke, and narrate the stream economy. → Read More

    February 19th, 2013

    Survey Says: 10% Of Netflix Subscribers Have Streamed House Of Cards, Watching 6 Episodes On Average

    house of cards

    So far, Netflix has been mum on viewership of House of Cards, preferring not to break out numbers for the number of subscribers who have watched it or how many hours they’ve watched. But research from financial services firm Cowen and Company suggests that Netflix’s original programming is already starting to pay dividends for the streaming service. → Read More

    February 14th, 2013

    Court Throws Out Shareholder Lawsuit Accusing Netflix Of Issuing Misleading Guidance

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    Netflix succeeded in getting a shareholder lawsuit dismissed that had accused the company of inflating its share price by concealing rising costs, even as insiders like CEO Reed Hastings were selling millions of dollars in stock, reports Reuters → Read More

    February 12th, 2013

    Arrested Development’s Will Arnett: Netflix Allows The Creative Community To Do What It Does Best

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    On a panel discussion at D: Dive Into Media with Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos and Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz, comedian Will Arnett praised the freedom that the streaming provider is giving creatives building its new slate of original programming. → Read More