We recently reported on Netflix' decision to get rid of their profile feature, a decision that was not at all popular with customers. Here at Download Squad, we got several comments bemoaning the company's poor judgment and threatening to cancel their subscriptions to the service. Apparently, our readers were not alone. Thanks to pressure from calls, emails and petitions, Netflix has realize their error of their ways and agreed to keep profiles.
Today, Netflix users received this email:
"You spoke and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are.
We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint you.
-Your friends at Netflix"
This is completely brilliant on the part of Netflix. They're going to get more goodwill from listening to users and keeping profiles than they ever lost by theatening to take them away. For users, nothing has changed, but the public perception of Netflix is bound to go up, now.
Netflix users are in an uproar, and rightfully so.
If you're not familiar with what Netflix is, then sorry...please move along.
Kidding...you can rent movies online, and you can create a queue of what you want to see, and they'll mail them to your house as they're available. It's like an autopilot feature and it frakkin rocks.
A few months ago the company put out an even cooler feature that let Netflix account holders create multiple queues under one account. So basically your baby daughter, mom, uncle Steve, and your parrot Whiskers could have their own queue of movies that they want to see.
Such a time saver, such a great function that really reminds you why you use and love (and pay for) Netflix.
Don't go and try to sign up just for that feature though, because Netflix just announced that they're taking it away.
For about as long as we can remember, folks have been talking about "the future," when there won't be any real difference between your TV and your computer. You'll be able to walk into the living room and read web pages or watch online videos on your flat panel display just as easily as you could in your office.
Well, we've got a secret for you: The future is already here. Kind of. It's surprisingly easy to hook your computer up to a television set these days, either with a video-out card or a Windows Media Extender. And if you've got Windows Vista, odds are you've got Windows Media Center, which is a 10-foot interface for accessing your audio, video, and picture collections. And now, thanks to a third party plugin you can even use Windows Media Center to watch streaming video from Netflix (assuming you have a Netflix account).
MyNetflix is a free plugin for Windows Vista Media Center that lets you manage your queue. And most importantly, it lets you browse and watch streaming video using the Netflix "watch now" service. Only a portion of the Netflix library is available for streaming, and good luck finding new releases. But we'd much rather watch old movies on our TV than new ones on our laptop.
Sure, Apple may have launched digital movie rentals from the iTunes Store, but Netflix lets you watch videos for free. Well, free if you happen to already have a monthly subscription for their DVD-by-mail service. But while iTunes videos play on a Mac, PC, or Apple TV set top box, right now you can only watch Netflix videos on a PC. That's because the company uses Windows Media DRM to keep you from saving a copy of the streaming videos.
But Netflix is working on a Mac compatible version of its online video service. Silicon Alley Insider reports that during the company's recent earnings call, Netflix announced that Mac support could be coming sometime in 2008. Of course, there's a good 11 months and a few days left in 2008. And since Netflix didn't offer specifics, we're going to go out on a limb and say you might not see Mac support until leaves have grown on the trees and then started to change color. But we'd love to be proven wrong.
Looking for a good way to load YouTube videos onto your iPod, organize your digital camera photos, keep your Mac software up to date, or protect your privacy while surfing on a public computer? Download Squad's got you covered. Here's a roundup of some our favorite stories from the past week. Keeping it private (and safe!) on public computers
Ever find yourself looking up health advice or other potentially sensitive information while at the library? Our resident librarian has some tips for protecting your privacy when using public computers. Some tips are common sense: don't enter sensitive data like your social security information on a public PC, but there are some other basic steps you can take to keep your browsing sessions safe. Tooble: Get YouTube videos on iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV
Sure, programs which download and convert YouTube videos to formats you can watch on a portable media player are a dime a dozen. Cheaper, actually, since most are free. But if you've got a Mac, you owe it to yourself to check out Tooble, a freeware YouTube video converter which does everything you could ever dream and more with just a few clicks.
It's official. Netflix has lifted its monthly time limits for online video viewing. When the DVD-rental service first added a "watch now" online video option to its service, users could only watch as many hours of video as they paid for their monthly subscription. For example if you had the $18/month plan you could watch 18 hours of video per month. A few weeks ago we got word that Netflix was letting some users know that this restriction was being lifted. And now the AP is reporting that the change is official -- for most users.
Subscribers at the lowest level, who pay just $4.99 per month to rent up to 2 DVDs per month will only get to watch a few hours of video. But everyone else will get access to all 6,000 movies and TV shows currently available.
The change in service should be active Monday morning -- just in time for Macworld, where it's likely that Apple will announce an iTunes video rentals.
Netflix, the popular DVD-by-mail rental service, is teaming up with hardware manufactures to bring movies straight to your living room, bypassing the DVD by mail part of their business. In an obvious move to be competitive against Blockbuster and online services such as Joost and Zulu, Netflix is making another wave in the digital download arena.
The New York Times reports that Netflix has teamed up with LG to deliver movies and other high-def content straight to your TV. Netflix would like to have numerous relationships with many hardware manufacturers to make their service available to as many people as possible.
Netflix users have had the ability to watch movies online, but it requires web access and a PC. We congratulate Netflix for trying to make their service possible directly to our shiny HDTVs.
Netflix customers have had the option to watch selected videos on a PC without waiting for a DVD to show up in the mail since earlier this year. But up until recently there were three major restrictions on the service:
It only works with Windows.
You could only watch a limited number of hours of programming per month.
The selection was on the small and obscure side.
While the service is still Windows-only, several users have reported that Netflix is addressing the other two issues. Netflix is sending out emails letting customers know that there are no longer monthly restrictions on how many shows they can watch. The email also states that Netflix now has over 6,000 movies and TV episodes available, which is about twice the number the service seems to have had this summer. [via Zatz Not Funny]
NetFlix revolutionized the way we think about watching movies at home. Rather than go to the rental store and waste hours wandering around waiting for the art on a movie case to grab your attention, you can visit a website that will not only allow you to queue up titles to watch, but also suggest movies that you might like based on your preferences.
Deciding what movie to watch is a big deal for some people, but others are more interested in what to read. If you fall into the latter group, have a look at the new web service What Should I Read Next. For new users, simply enter the Title and Author of one of your favorite books to get a list of recommended reading. To make the list of suggestions more focused, you can create an account and add a list of books.
In our informal testing, some of the recommendations can be unusual considering the original title used for suggestions. It's unclear whether this is based on some extremely sophisticated algorithm and is entirely accurate, or is due to a very new service attempting to make recommendations based on a very small set of data. Regardless, if you're at a loss for what to read next, it can't hurt to give What Should I Read Next a try.
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.
In an effort to stay ahead of the movies online business and directly compete with the likes of Apple, Amazon, Walk-Mart and Netflix, Blockbuster has announced that they have purchased Movielink.
Movielink was the first online service to offer legal downloads of both movies and TV shows since it was launched in 2001. Along with the deal, Blockbuster will also be acquiring the rights to show films from Movielinks owners which included Warner Bros, MGM, and Paramount.
Blockbuster is also an investor in CinemaNow who allows streaming of over 400 film, TV and concert videos. This new Movielink deal is going to complement the video chains in store rental, as well as create a way to send movies straight to TV's and computers.
No dollar figures of the deal have been announced as of yet.
There's just one problem. You have to watch on Netflix's terms. The video player is browser based, and the movies are wrapped up in Windows Media DRM. If you want to want to copy a movie to a portable device for viewing on the go, you're out of luck.
Well, the smart folks over at the Rorta forums seem to have cracked the code, using Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player 11, FairUse4WM, and Notepad. The solution involves finding the URL of the video file, downloading it, acquiring the license key and then stripping the DRM. It's a bit involved, and will probably take longer than just sitting down and watching the movie. But hey, it's the principle of the thing, right?
Keeping track of calendars and appointments might say 'boring' to many users, but Google is aiming to change that stigma with their new Calendar gallery. With nary a 'Management Strategies' event in sight, this collection of subscribe-able calendars (which anyone can add to) is all about fun, travel, sports and the rest of life. Featured calendars include a Netflix DVD release schedule, Orbitz deals, presidential travel schedules and even specific TV show schedules.
Don't fret about the calendar subscribing process, as you won't have to deal with cleaning out schedules you never meant to follow. Clicking the name of any calendar offers a handy pop-up view of the entire month and all that particular calendar's events, allowing you to get a birds-eye view and decide before actually subscribing.
This is a great move for Google Calendar. Until now, users could only search public calendars, but not browse any kind of list, let alone see them organized into categories. Now that you can also view Google Calendar on your mobile phone, you never have to miss another appointment or actually interesting event again.
The San Jose Mercury News has already reported that spokespersons for Netflix and Amazon have already dismissed the rumor as, well... as a rumor. Of course, that's exactly what they would say even if there were some truth to it.
But there's at least one good reason to think this deal may be nothing more than idle speculation. Right now Amazon can sell products to buyers in most states without charging sales tax. But U.S. law says that if you have a bricks and mortar operation in a state, you have to charge sales tax. Since Netflix has 43 distribution centers across the country, that could mean Amazon would have to begin charging sales tax to millions of customers.
If you're the sort of person who likes to read three books at a time, but can't finish any of them within 30 days, and doesn't mind paying the price of a hardcover book every month without getting to keep anything, have we got the service for you!
BookSwim wants to be Netflix for books. That's right, they want you to pay a monthly fee in order to receive 5 to 11 books at a time via the mail. Unlike your public library, there's no late fee if you don't finish the book within three or four weeks. You can keep them until you're done, and then send them back.
But also unlike your public library, you have to pay a monthly fee to join. The cheapest plan lets you read up to three books at a time for $24 per month. If you've got more readers in your family the 11 books at a time plan might seem like a better deal -- at $36 per month.
Or you could, you know, go to your local library. They might not have 150,000 titles, but that's what interlibrary loan is for.
We recently reported on Netflix' decision to get rid of their profile feature, a decision that was not at all popular with customers. Here at Download Squad, we got several comments bemoaning the company's poor judgment and threatening to cancel their subscriptions to the service. Apparently, our readers were not alone. Thanks to pressure from calls, emails and petitions, Netflix has realize their error of their ways and agreed to keep profiles. 
Looking for a good way to load YouTube videos onto your iPod, organize your digital camera photos, keep your Mac software up to date, or protect your privacy while surfing on a public computer? Download Squad's got you covered. Here's a roundup of some our favorite stories from the past week.
NetFlix revolutionized the way we think about watching movies at home. Rather than go to the rental store and waste hours wandering around waiting for the art on a movie case to grab your attention, you can visit a website that will not only allow you to queue up titles to watch, but also suggest movies that you might like based on your preferences. 
