Netflix almost doubles price in September

Netflix, Inc., (NASDAQ: NFLX) is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming video in the United States and Canada,[5] and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States.[6] The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California. It started its subscription service in 1999[7] and by 2009 it was offering a collection of 100,000 titles on DVD, surpassing 10 million subscribers.[7] On February 25, 2007, Netflix announced the billionth DVD delivery.[8] In April 2011, Netflix announced 23.6 million subscribers.[9] In summer 2011, Netflix announced they will expand into the European market, starting in Spain by 2012.[10] (Wikipedia.org)

Netflix is going to increase the price for their service by 50%.

I have right now the cheapest plan for streaming and DVD delivering to my house. It is $9.99 which included one DVD at the time send to my house and unlimited video streaming and I use both a lot.





Starting in September I have to make the choice to stream only or to get DVDs only delivered to keep same price or even to be cheaper.

Just streaming does not help me because there a videos we like which are not available for streaming, mostly the new blockbusters or some exotic international videos.

Getting only DVD delivered is not the answer for us neither, because for the $10 I can have only 1 DVD at any given time. Which allows me to watch max 8 videos a month. It takes two days for Netflix to receive the video and two more days till I get a new video to my house.

Not that I am totally upset, the service is still much cheaper than Apple iTunes and has more selections than hulu or Amazon, but I might consider to sign up for amazon prime (which is needed to get unlimited free video streaming).
Prime costs only $79 a year and gives much more than unlimited movies streaming.



The only problem is that neither my AppleTV nor my xbox 360 can play amazon videos. Of course if I would have a PC (which I don't have, I have only Apple computers) then I could install the amazon unbox player on my PC and then connect the xbox to my PC.

The beauty on Netflix is that it works with all my devices. The AppleTV has Netflix, the xbox has it, i installed the Netflix apps on my iPhone and iPad and of course Netflix works on my Apple computer as well.

It was expected that Netflix will get more expensive, the costs for the rights are getting higher for Netflix in September, when the new contracts with the movie companies come in place. On the the other hand the long tail idea does not work as expected. Usually the idea behind long tail is that Netflix attracts customers with expensive blockbusters but then the consumer will watch most of the videos which are loyalty free or have very low fees for Netflix.

At the end of the first quarter of 2011 Netflix had 21,675,500 subscribers. This is a 59% increase over the first quarter of 2010.



But one of the big problems that the Netflix bears point out is that the average revenue per user has been declining. In the first quarter of 2006 the average revenue per user was $17.06. At the end of the first quarter of 2011 this number fell to $11.94.


At the same time the costs per customer did grow but 20%.
But the good mews is that the acquisition costs did fall extremely. The average costs per new customer is just a little more than the revenue per customer per month.



Above statistics are from seeking alpha.

Streaming is much cheaper for Netflix than sending DVDs. Of course streaming a lot of data is expensive but having distribution centers is neither cheap and less scalable. But do you know what the postage costs are for Netflix? $0.56 per DVD. In my case I have in average 6 DVD a month, this already $3.36 out of my $9.99 a month plus all other costs the margins are very low for Netflix (in my case).

Netflix will release in the next few weeks their annual numbers, we will see how healthy they are.

I am certain that Netflix wants to get more users to streaming only and eventual move totally from DVDs away.

But two things should happen. First of all Netflix needs to have all their movies as streaming available and second they have to come to a method that we can stream the specials to DVDs as well. The beauty of DVDs is the extra stuff on it, directors cut, interview etc. Apple is partly offering such extras. I bought as download Star Trek and got a bonus to it with interviews etc.

Having all videos as streaming might be very difficult, because international movies might have different streaming rights than sending a DVD. We will see.

I will wait till last second, if I stay with Netflix and choose just one service or if I move to other services. As an example my dish provider is offering more and more videos on demand and many series I watched at Netflix I get free at hulu.

An image from amazon about compatible devices - brands



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Location:Spinning Wheel Ln,Brooksville,United States

AirPlay for everyone - the Apple TV might be history

Bloomberg reported that Apple is going to license AirPlay for video streaming.
Airplay can right now stream audio to AirPlay enabled devices or can stream from your iPhone video to your Apple TV.



In the future it might be possible to stream video to other than Apple devices.

Airplay is very cool. I watched on my iPhone a movie, but the image was too small so I streamed to my iPad. I walked with my iPad into the living room and decided to watch it on my big TV. I just used AirPlay and the video did run on my TV.

Many times I listen to music in my office, and when I go in the backyard I use AirPlay to switch the music to our porch or even run it in the office and porch at the same time.

If Apple is licensing AirPlay for video streaming will then the Apple TV go away? Yes.

The example I had was cool, but had one big disadvantage. I did not charge my iPad a while and during watching the movie the battery went empty. And when watching movie over AirPlay you can't switch the app otherwise the movie stops. And as we all know, we like to multitask. We like to watch TV and read emails at the same time. All these might be reasons why Apple TV will not go away. We still want to use the Apple TV to stream Netflix and not our phone and then stream it to TV.

But there is a bigger problem for the Apple TV if combined with AirPlay. 50% of recent sold TVs are internet ready and many of them have apps to watch Netflix and hulu. For music they have pandora.

The main reason I have an Apple TV is that I can Netflix, watch my iTunes movies and present my Photos on a big screen.

Internet ready TVs take the need for Netflix and AirPlay would take the need for Apple TV.

The main point for Apple TV 2 was to get consumers more reason to buy iPhones or other Apple products. An Apple product booster which came a few years too late. I did not read or hear any big numbers of the new Apple TV sold, even that the Apple TV is so far the best TV box.
Last news i read was 1million devices sold, but this was in December 2010. If the numbers were much higher now, Apple would have announced them.
The price is so low ($99), you can not do anything wrong (Google TV $300). And it is surly not a device to make money. The manufacturing costs are $64.

Apple might see that licensing $4 per TV would produce more revenue than selling the Apple TV and will reach more consumers, which means more consumers might buy an iPhone or iPad because their TV has AirPlay.

Do I think the Apple TV will go away? yes. If my next TV has Internet and AirPlay, I would retire my Apple TV 2 for sure.



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Hulu Plus for iPhone and iPad

Two months ago ABC announced that Hulu will only be available for browsers which have flash, because flash seems to be the only way for ABC to get the best statistics, which other platforms can't offer, ABC said.
In a really short time ABC changed their mind and offering now Hulu for iPad and iPhone. The application is free to download, but subscription cost $9.99 per month.
If you use 3G it can get much more expensive if you don't have the "unlimited" data contract.
You need an premium account with hulu, which you need an invite but it is easy to get by subscribing with your email address.

The videos are not ad free (always pre roll) even that you payed $9.99 monthly fee. If you turn the iPad the videos might not turn to landscape.
But otherwise nice interface, but a little buggy.








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Location:W Laurel St,Tampa,United States