After a failed attempt at social networking in September, Netflix announced yesterday in a quarterly earnings report that it will once again try going social.
The report stated that the company is working on an “extensive Facebook integration.” While Netflix won’t say exactly what that means, we’re guessing it will allow users to do things like share their personal viewing history in their newsfeed, recommend videos to friends and get suggestions based on what your friends watch. The campaign is likely a way to keep up with the competition from the likes of Hulu, Apple and Amazon.
Since Netflix says a lot of video streaming is “more naturally individual” and “is watched on personal screens like phones, tablets, and laptops, as well as on shared large screen televisions,” the company will also offer individual accounts to members of a household, rather than limiting accounts to one per address. That means that it would be possible for your kids to watch Toy Story 3 on the Roku while you stream Mad Men on your iPad.
Ultimately, the report notes that the company’s goal is to target the number of active mobile phones (as opposed to households) in an area, which is certainly aiming high. But if social media integration with Facebook actually succeeds this time, Netflix could be in for a big boom.
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