Remember how a few weeks back, Netflix was the king of the New World? They were trading at $300 per share, they were the masters of their domain, and it looked like the sky was the limit.
Today, they are trading at $130 per share, and suddenly Netflix is the fat kid in grade eight who just let out a loud fart int class. No one wants to sit next to Netflix. And everyone is scratching their head, wondering what happened to the Golden Boy? The thing is, no one thing happened. A bunch of things happened.
They lost content. Starz provides much of Netflix's most up-to-date streaming content, and that deal is set to expire, leaving a hole in their offering. That comes on the heels of competitors entering into the streaming movie space. But fear not. With a shrinking content base and increasing competition, they did the only logical thing ...
They raised their prices like pimps at a Shriners convention. No one likes a hike of 60%. Sure, their subscription rate remains fairly reasonable, but the hike was sudden, sharp and reeked of arrogance. It was like throwing a bucket of cold water on a rocking dance floor. Total buzz kill. That's when the real bleeding began. Their Facebook pages filled with flaming comments. Their subscriber base shrank. Their core users began to get very pissed off. So, they did the only logical thing ...
They 'Apologized'. Really. If the CEO had been a little bolder, he would have wiggled his fingers as he air quoted the word 'sorry'. The apology was so "heartfelt" and "sincere" that it took up multiple pages, and more than 10 paragraphs. Sensing that he was losing his credibility, in the middle of his apology, the CEO did the only logical thing ...
They announced Qwikster in the middle of the apology, as if the apology was the minor bookkeeping chore to get out of the way, and Qwikster was the real reason people should be paying attention. But Qwikster is nothing more than the original business concept of mail-around DVDs. But now if you wanted to use both services, you had to pay almost twice as much, and you have to go to two different sites, with two separate rating systems. But Netflix knew it was important to make this announcement, so they did the only logical thing ...
They gave a name that reeked Dotcom crash and Also Ran websites. Maybe it was forward thinking. Maybe they knew that the service was headed to the same graveyard as Napster and Friendster. With that in mind, they did the next logical thing ...
They announced it at the height of No One Is Paying Attention Season. August is perhaps the worst time to announce a new commercial venture: everyone is on holiday. The only other time would be immediately after Christmas, when everyone is broke. But, fear not, for Qwikster is so new and unique that it is going to be a marketing slam dunk, according to the geniuses that must have done countless minutes of homework, crossing the i's and dotting the t's because, of course, then followed the only logical thing ...
They forgot to secure the Qwikster Twitter account. Somewhere, in the bowels of the Netflix marketing department, there is a project manager with his head in his hands. He had only one job. Get the Twitter feed going. But @Qwikster was already taken, by Jason Castillo who appears to be somewhat of a slacker. This is one of his recent tweets:
Dang nothing to eat tf lls :P ima ask my dad for money for I can go buy somthing
Words fail me. This is now the Twitterland face of Netflix's DVD subscription service. It's enough to make you wonder if the grand plan is to actually kill of the mail order side of the Netflix business.
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