It looks like Netflix is ramping up its social features. The video rental service replaced its "Friends" page a few weeks ago with a new "Community" section. The company is still refining the site, but here's a bunch of the newest features:

• The feed with the latest movie reviews submitted by users has been updated to make it more readable. For example, when you hover your mouse over a review, the stream will pause while you read.
• Find members who have similar tastes in movies by jumping right to other users' ratings pages.
• See wht your friends are renting, rating, returning, and reviewing.
• See what your friends loved and hated.

An interesting side note is that Netflix does not maintain an easy to navigate member directory. Such a directory would make it a lot easier to find your real life friends on Netflix. But apparently video rental companies are prevented by US law from providing viewers' rental habits to the public. So you'll have to find your friends the old fashioned way, but sending them an e-mail or scanning through online nicknames.

[via TechCrunch]