[COMP] Re: wow, netflix

I thought I'd send in a little update on this service, since I'm now a 
happy member.  If you missed my first post about netflix, it's in the 
archive.

These guys are geniuses.  Whoever designed this service is brilliant.  I 
could spend weeks just poking around the site and renting movies.  

Cool stuff:
1) They have a rental "queue" that you fill with movies you want to see as 
you're browsing the site.  You drop movies into the queue as you find them 
(every movie has a preview you can download, a brief synopsis, and 
ratings/comments of other members who've seen it), and they 
*automatically* ship them to you as soon as you've returned movies 
(remember that you can only have 4 out at a time).  
2) You can browse movies by category.  Since there are SO many movies 
(over 8,500 total), this can get kinda useless.  But if you're in the mood 
for one type of movie, this is great.
3) You can check on the status of stuff that's been shipped to you, so you 
know what's on its way and when it'll arrive.  Note that they'll 
automatically send the highest-priority item in your rental queue to you.
4) Recommendations: This feature really inks the deal.  They've got this 
online rating system where you rate movies that you've seen, or mark 'not 
interested' on ones you don't think you'd like, and the system keeps a 
profile of you in their database, and automatically makes recommendations. 
 If you rate those, it'll get more and more accurate.  They even take the 
guesswork out of finding out what movies you'll want to see!  

These guys are gonna put blockbuster out of business.  The only complaint 
I've got about it is that it takes 3 or 4 days for them to mail you the 
discs.  There's really nothing that can be done about that, but it's nice 
to just be out with friends, etc., and just stop by and get a movie.  
Having to plan it out so the dvd's arrived on time is kinda silly.  

If you're a movie buff, you gotta try this out (they've got a free trial, 
I think, and your first month's free anyway).  Get yourself a DVD player, 
and throw away your blockbuster membership, you won't need it. :)

John


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