nettle on Netflix, part 4

by Brian L. Dear

 

 

More on Ratings

Some more thoughts on Ratings are necessary, after some correspondence with Neil at Netflix. Let me start with a table:

	OWN	DON'T OWN
LIKE	If you own the movie and you like it, then I argue that you should be able to tell Netflix that you own it and like it. By saying you own it, you're telling Netflix to never recommend it again (unless say a Special Edition or Director's Cut version comes out or something), but recommend others similar to it.	If you do not own a movie but you like it (in other words, you probably saw it at a theater or a friend's house), then you want Netflix to know that you like it and also you want Netflix to recommend it to you since it's a movie you don't own but would like to rent some day. This makes Netflix become a reminder, which is something I think a knowledgable, albeit virtual rental-store-clerk should do for the customer.
DON'T LIKE	This one's easy: just indicate "Not Interested" or some low star rating, and one assumes Netflix will never recommend this movie to you again.	Same thing: just indicate "Not Interested" or some low star rating, and one assumes Netflix will never recommend this movie to you again.

Of the four possibilities with any DVD, it's the "Like but Don't Own" that concerns me the most: I don't own it, but I really liked it when I saw it last year at the movie theater. I stashed away a mental note saying "I wanna rent that some day." I come to Netflix and there's the movie again. For some reason I am not ready to rent it right now, but I go ahead and rate it 5 stars.

Now, Neil from Netflix says, "If you rate it, we tend not to show it to you again. So if you own it and rate it (high or low), you won't see it recommended, but you WILL see similar items recommended."

I give you Exhibit A, right from the Netflix site:

The assumption at Netflix is that rating indicates you don't want something recommended, it seems. The problem is, I am "especially likely to enjoy" a whole bunch of movies I have seen in theaters but never rented.

I went and rated 125 movies this weekend --- all movies that I'd seen in movie theaters at some point in the past, but all movies that I do NOT own.... As a user, my understanding of ratings was if you rate it, Netflix will better understand that you like it or not -- period. Not that it will better understand that you like it or not and then never recommend it to you ever again. So much for this particular user thinking that I could use Netflix as a "reminder service" to remind me about movies I like and want to "rent some day"....

Heck, I've been known to go to Blockbuster and rent a movie, and then a year or two later, go back to Blockbuster and rent the same movie again. Say I have friends or relatives over and we want to watch that movie. I was hoping I could do the same with Netflix. But if Netflix hides movies from me that I say I like, then there are many rental opportunities that I the customer and Netflix the company are missing out on, yes?

If I read Neil correctly, I'm now screwed. None of those 125 movies I rated will ever be recommended to me. Yikes!

Hope to hear more clarifications from Netflix folks on this.

That's all for Part Four... will post an update when I hear back from Netflix.

UPDATE: Continued in Part Five...

Posted by brian at August 19, 2002 10:22 AM