Davis Freeberg

Netflix Downgrades Miss Their Mark

Great insights. Somehow I don't see them ever monetizing their data by selling it to third parties. Their ability to know whether or not a customer will like a movie is certainly part of their secret formula. By reintroducing older movies to their customers, it helps to bring the content costs down, especially for the streaming service.

I found your comment about live streaming especially interesting. To be honest, I've never actually considered this before. I'm not sure if the studios would be comfortable simulcasting on Netflix and TV at the same time, but it's an interesting concept that my brain is still mulling over. It seems like there could be a lot of promotional benefit to giving away free live streaming for DVD/Watch Now premiers. They could use a Friday night movie of the week or something as a way of introducing watch instantly to people who haven't subscribed yet.

Having said that though, I suspect that live streaming would still be a ways off because of the technically difficulties of streaming concurrent feeds to all of their viewers at once. When you look at what happened during the Obama inauguration, it's clear that live streaming still has some bugs to work out. Still, it's an interesting idea that I'd love to see them experiment with.