Netflix Inc., the Los Gatos, CA-based company that started the online DVD rental business and now faces new competition in the market, has introduced a feature designed to satisfy family members’ differing taste in movies. The feature, called Profiles, allows each member of the family to set up his or her own queue and differentiates Netflix from competitors.
Until now, Netflix members created a single list of movies they wanted to see, and the company mailed them DVD versions of three of the movies from the list. When a member mailed back one or more DVDs, Netflix replaced them, thus maintaining a rotating library of three DVDs for each member. The company charges $17.99 a month, plus tax, for that standard three-DVD plan. Alternative plans provide for larger rotating libraries for higher fees.
If a family created a list of movies that different members wanted to see, the luck of the draw could result in having all of the children’s cartoon favorites at one point in time and all of Dad’s old John Wayne flicks at another point.
To remedy that, Netflix is allowing families to set up as many queues, or lists, as they like and determine how many movies from each list should be included in the library at any given time. A family could decide, for example, to keep one of Dad’s movies on hand, one of Mom’s and one of Junior’s.
Parents can determine whether children’s queues can include movies with PG, PG-13 or R ratings. Select-by-Age categories are available for ages 0-2, 5-7, 8-10 and 11-12. Members can set up the queues online at no charge.
Netflix is facing challenges in the online movie DVD market from Blockbuster and Wal-Mart. Some analysts predict Amazon.com may enter the fray in the United States because they’ve begun selling DVDs online in the United Kingdom.
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