WillLybrand.com

Surprisingly enough, all of my Netflix posts have been the most popular on my blog… including leading incoming Google search results. As a result, I felt this follow-up was prudent for the people that keep searching for “netflix friends gone” and “netflix remove friends”.

It was more than a month ago, on March 4th, that Netflix announced their new movie details page. Nearly 2 weeks later, VP of Product Management Todd Yellin finally addressed the nearly 700 comments (200 more had been deleted) that were critical of the new pages lack of the Friends and Lists features. In that update, Todd confirmed that Netflix was doing away with their social networking features to focus on other projects, such as increasing the quantity of streaming devices as well as the quality of the streaming experience. That blog post has over 800 comments and that number is still growing.

Early on I was very critical of Netflix’s decision. I still am. Frankly, a product oriented website such as Netflix has a wealth of potential in front of them if they would choose to fully implement good social network features. Despite that growing trend across almost all product oriented websites, Netflix is still silent after their initial announcement about the removal of friends.

Since that time, Netflix has announced streaming for the Wii, the iPhone, and the iPad, as well as the first version of Subtitles for streams (currently on 100 titles, most of which are Lost). Netflix has not been forthcoming as to when the rest of the friends functionality will be removed, but frankly, it doesn’t matter. The movie details redesign severely crippled the friends functionality to begin with, so I’m surprised they didn’t pull it all then.

As reported in this news post on HackingNetflix, there are a number of users that are removing their reviews from the site in protest of the friends removal. These users have been replacing their reviews with text that reads:

Dear reader, Until March 12th 2010 this was an actual real review. Because the new design that NetfIix has implemented for movie detail pages removed information about what our friends rated movies, as well as top 10 lists and the ability to send movie notes, I’ve decided to move my reviews elsewhere. I see no reason to supply NetfIix with free content when NetfIix does not support its users. To see my reviews click on my profile picture to the left and follow the link there to the NetfIix Community. If NetfIix decides to reverse its stance on this issue, I’ll happily bring my reviews back, but until then, this note will take its place. I apologize for the inconvenience, dear reader, and hope you’ll forgive this non-review.

This was a movie review until NetfIix decided to remove friend features. Since NetfIix seems to place no value on its most active members, I’m no longer going to be an active member. The new design that they have implemented for movie detail pages removed friends’ ratings, top 10 lists and the ability to send movie notes. If NetfIix decides to reverse its stance on this issue, I’ll start writing reviews again. Until then, I am no longer going to give them free content and I’ve decided to move my reviews elsewhere. If you are reading this, please call NetfIix and ask them to give us our community features back. I apologize for this non-review.

Under normal circumstances I might have reviewed this DVD, but when NF implemented the new DVD page detail design they removed friends’ ratings, top 10 lists and the ability to send movie notes. That made it harder for me and others to find movies we’ll like. If you are reading this, please call NetfIix and ask them to give us the community features back. I apologize for this non-review.

According to the poll on that same page, 72% of 6,200 responses say that ‘Friends is a big part of my Netflix experience’.

I have reduced my Netflix subscription down to one-at-a-time. I have also used a GreaseMonkey script to retrieve all of my Netflix ratings so that I have a personal history of them. I still expect to be Netflix free in the next couple of months. At this point, I still have a very bad taste in my mouth over how the feature was removed, how long it took them to address it, the tone in which it was addressed, and just the fact that the feature is gone itself. The feature being missing pretty much removes the usefulness I had found out of Netflix.

I hope that Netflix has seen a drop in their queue counts, subscribers, reviews, and active users. I really do hope that. And as a result, I hope they change their mind and bring friends back.

*Netflix image courtesy of Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar

I can not believe this.

I am really disappointed right now, as both a movie lover and a loyal customer to a company I love(d).

Todd Yellin, the VP of Product for Netflix (that’s right, his site is just a gigantic picture of himself in a suit…), has stated that less than 2% of Netflix users use friends. What does this statistic even mean? Is he saying that only 2% of Netflix users have Friends? Or is he trying to say that less than 2% of Netflix users go to the Friends pages? Could this statistic be any more ambiguous?

Despite the cloudiness of this statistic, Yellin has decided that Netflix needs to remove this  feature so that they can focus their efforts elsewhere, like enable streaming on an iPhone… but why kill a feature that a loyal fan-base uses so heavily? Don’t customers that are ’super users’ count for something, and is it really causing that much overhead?

I can tell you that I used the friends feature 100% of the time I went to the site, every single time I looked at the movie details page. Now, because friends are gone, I do not use the site as much! I do not spend as much time surfing the site for movies because it’s not as useful without being able to see what my friends have rated different movies.

I think Netflix has… errr, had… an extremely powerful tool in its Friends feature and they are abandoning it without fully considering it’s potential. After all, it was only an *experiment* in 2004, and since then they have relegated it to links in the footer. They never even bothered marketing the feature on their own site!

This is the same approach they took with the ‘Profiles’ feature. Awhile back they announced that they were going to remove the multi-household profiles feature because no one used it. As a result, there was a huge outcry from their users and guess what? They brought the feature back. I am crossing the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks out of my fingers that this can be repeated with the Friends feature. As of now, the comments are growing both on their blog post and on Hacking Netflix. I hope other websites like Fast Company and Consumerist continue to cover this too.

I am going to start looking at Netflix alternatives. If I can’t see my friend’s ratings, I might as well go to Blockbuster. They ship just as many movies like Netflix, the have a storefront, and are at a similar price-point. I guess the Friends feature was one of the many reasons I was such a loyal customer to begin with, perhaps the only reason.

The other day I mentioned that Netflix had redesigned it’s movie details page, updated their blog stating such, and then deleted about 180 comments on the blog post that raised concerns and questions over the redesign. A Netflix representative commented on the blog post that the comments were deleted due to a technical error.

Since that time, Netflix has made no communication at all with its customers. The comments on the post continue to swell, now up to 280, and it would seem as though no end is in site.

Several users are canceling their accounts, or putting them on hold, until Netflix issues some sort of explanation as to the removal of both the Friends and Top 10 Lists from the movie details page. I am likely going to be doing that very same thing shortly, while simultaneously calling in their customer support to voice my concerns. There are other DVD services out there to be considered, as well as local rental shops.

This is pretty infuriating. I am a die-hard Netflix fan and have been for years. I’ve converted several of my friends and family into Netflix customers. I feel as though I have been swindled by my own best friend, and they won’t even explain themselves.

Another interesting thing about this is that I haven’t seen a single blog post or news article about this change. I would’ve expected TechCrunch or some other internet news blog to pick this up as it is a pretty significant change to a pretty significant online business.