The ongoing war between rival on-demand streaming services as they build out their catalogues to win customers means rarely a week goes by without news of another content licensing deal being inked. But with all that noise it can be tough to figure out how substantial on-demand catalogues actually are. Now we have a little more insight into two UK services: Netflix and LOVEFiLM Instant. → Read More
One cable provider is arguing that because Netflix isn’t offering it Super HD or 3D content, that it is essentially discriminating against ISPs based on whether they deploy Open Connect boxes. Here’s why that’s BS. → Read More
Netflix isn’t all about movies, as you know. The company has been adding more television to its on-demand service and today announced multi-year licensing agreements with both Turner Broadcasting and Warner Bros. Television Group. The agreement includes episodes of shows from Cartoon Network, Warner Bros. Animation, Adult Swim, and the show Dallas from TNT. The deal, which will only make… → Read More
Glory be! After seven long and miserable years without a new Arrested Development episode, Netflix has confirmed on Twitter that the cult comedy series will be back for 14 episodes on the video-streaming platform in May. → Read More
To entice more ISPs to adopt its Open Connect initiative, Netflix is adding more features — namely the ability to offload ever-larger video files. That includes Netflix “Super HD” content, which will produce a better picture quality than is currently available for streaming on 1080p HDTVs, as well al 3D titles. → Read More
AT&T’s Screen Pack is not going to kill Netflix. It’s not going to compete with Netflix. It’s not going to take on Netflix. It’s merely going to exist alongside Netflix until AT&T gets bored of it, and either rolls it into its existing offering as a nice add-on, or decides to do away with it. → Read More
The latest skirmish in the ongoing battle between pay-TV and over-the-top providers to woo customers by building the most alluring content ecosystems has been won by Netflix. The on-demand streaming video service has inked a deal with U.S. Warner Bros for the exclusive online rights to eight current Warner Bros Television Group shows airing in the 2012-13 season. → Read More
HBO today has won a battle in the over-the-top content wars. The pay-TV giant has inked a deal with Universal Pictures that extends Universal Pictures’ and Focus Features’ films appearing on HBO’s TV, online and mobile platforms in the U.S. for the next decade. What’s key is that the deal is exclusive to HBO and will mean that Netflix (and other OTT players) will not get that… → Read More
Following its lengthy Christmas Eve outage, Netflix is again experiencing issues today, according to a message posted on the Netflix website, dozens of reports from users on Twitter, and other third-party website monitoring services. → Read More
Netflix has confirmed to Talking Points Memo that it will introduce social sharing features for U.S. users in 2013, following the passage of a bill that will make it easier for users of the on-demand video streaming platform to share what movies they have seen with friends on their social networking accounts. The legislation, passed last week, just needs President Obama’s signature. → Read More
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even those in the lighthearted holiday fare you were planning to watch on Netflix, which has been down since 1pm PST for some customers. Netflix confirmed the outage with a tweet on its official channel, though Netflix Cloud Architect Adrian Cockcroft said on Twitter that the service is still working on… → Read More
The U.S. Senate has passed legislation that will make it easier for Netflix users to share what movies they have watched with their Facebook friends. The new legislation has already been passed by the House of Representatives, so it just needs the president’s signature before you start seeing updates about your friends’ Netflix habits popping up in your Facebook newsfeed. Netflix already enables… → Read More
Redbox Instant by Verizon, the up-and-coming joint venture that’s preparing to take on Netflix, is now live in Google Play. The service won’t be publicly launching until early 2013, according to a recent report from The Hollywood Reporter, however. But Redbox recently told GigaOm that a beta test would begin in December – and, apparently, it’s beginning today. → Read More
The House of Representatives voted earlier today to approve a bill that would make it easier for users to share movies that they’re watching on social networks like Facebook. That could eventually lead more video services, like Netflix, to integrate with Facebook’s Open Graph and enable “seamless sharing” of that content. → Read More
Netflix is open sourcing its libraries for connecting the numerous services it uses on Amazon Web Services to keep its business running. Dubbed Hystrix, the offering is just another example of how Netflix has become the model for how to deploy and maintain a cloud infrastructure. → Read More
Editor’s note: Armando Kirwin is a filmmaker and consultant whose previous work has included Paramount Pictures, Microsoft, several startups, 13 feature films, and a handful of TV shows.
In case you haven’t noticed, wannabe Hollywood analysts, err, I mean tech bloggers the world over are breathlessly opining and propagating news about Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ estimate that Amazon is… → Read More
The war for customers for streaming video is being played out at all age demographics. Today, Amazon’s LoveFilm upped the ante on the youth front by announcing a deal with DHX Media (formerly known as Cookie Jar Entertainment), which will add 2,000 new childrens shows to its catalog in Europe, a massive expansion of its existing kids entertainment offerings. Among the well-known titles that will… → Read More
Netflix is going to the movies with its new Open Source Center on Github. In a clever play, Netflix has taken its well-known brand and placed it on GitHub to show each of its open-source projects as its own movie, genre and characters. → Read More
As the Web evolves and hundreds of sites collect data every day on who we are and what we love to do, personalization has become fundamental to user experience to help users find signal amidst the noise. Some companies utilize our social graph to provide recommendations from the people we trust, while others mine Big Data, incoming data from APIs and more. The problem, however, is that most… → Read More
Well, that didn’t take long. Following activist shareholder Carl Icahn’s purchase of nearly 10% of Netflix stock, the company has revealed a plan which will prevent a hostile takeover of its company. Under the new stockholder rights plan, announced today, Netflix will issue one Right for each current share of common stock outstanding on the close of business on November 2nd. → Read More
Carl Icahn has bought a big chunk of Netflix stock — nearly 10 percent altogether. It’s not clear exactly what his intentions are, but according to the filing, the investment was made because Icahn believes the stock is undervalued. And he might have a point: Netflix was once sitting pretty at about $300 a share, but has fallen fast. Netflix shares were hovering around $60 last week. → Read More
Netflix announced today that it now has more than 30 million members streaming content via its video service. That’s a lot of uses who’ve opted for on-demand, digitally delivered content. Netflix had 20 million members in 2010, so it’s added 10 million in the two years since, mostly via global expansion, although it now also has 25 million users in the U.S. alone. → Read More
Today, on Netflix’s third quarter investor call, Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells addressed the issue of Netflix’s brand recovery — something many Netflix users and investors were eager to hear about.
On the investor call, Hastings also said that that growth was “within the range of guidance from a year ago, although not from Q1,” which he attributed to being more… → Read More
In its latest earnings report, Netflix addresses the seemingly constant concerns that it’s losing out on valuable streaming content as its partners start pushing for more money.
For example, the company recently cut about 800 hours of programming from A&E and History, and its deal with Epix is no longer exclusive.
However, Netflix points out that among the top 10 TV shows, six are… → Read More
The Windows 8 Store could sure use a few good apps before the official Windows 8 launch later this month, but at least we’re seeing a slow trickle of interesting apps from known brands now. One of these is Netflix, which just launched its previously announced Windows 8 app. → Read More
Netflix has just launched its “Just For Kids” user interface on the iPad, combining two of kids’ favorite things: the iPad and cartoons.
The Just For Kids UI debuted back in August of 2011, and has since made its way to the Xbox and various Blu-ray players and smart TVs.
Children tend to really enjoy the iPad’s touch interface, but without any parental controls within the app, you never… → Read More
Netflix teased this update earlier, and now it has delivered full support for the iPhone 5‘s larger screen and new aspect ratio. It’s a change that means users get access to an improved browsing experience, more content on menu screens visible at once, and also fullscreen playback of videos in 16:9 format, instead of presenting them letterboxed. → Read More
Ivi.ru the “Hulu of Russia” that offers streamed premium TV and films from international and local big-name content holders, has raised another $40 million round of funding. The investment was led by Baring Vostok, a private equity firm, along with existing investors ru-Net, Tiger Global, Prof-Media and Frontier Ventures. Oleg Tumanov, ivi.ru founder and CEO, tells TechCrunch that the funds will… → Read More
HBO is going to launch its first significant over-the-top offering, and it’s going to do so in one of the same markets as Netflix. The service, called HBO Nordic, will be launched in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland in mid-October, and could provide some interesting competition to Netflix, which will also soon be entering that region.
HBO Nordic is a joint venture between Home Box Office… → Read More
Good job, Netflix PR: Today the company announced it has hit 1 million subscribers for its video streaming service just seven months after launch in the UK and Ireland. That’s pretty impressive, by any measure, but it’s also somewhat old news. During last month’s Q2 financing results, the company openly talked about its numbers internationally, trumpeting growth in the UK and Ireland in… → Read More
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