Netflix Plans Big For 2008

With all of the increased competition coming from Apple these days, Netflix seems to have a strategy for 2008 that will move the movie rental service beyond serving DVDs through mailboxes across America.

Perhaps it is because of the modern-day format war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray that Netflix is now looking to expand the ways consumers can access its library of video entertainment. Whatever it is, it will not only save movie lovers a trip to the store, but also a walking trip to the mailbox.

The first move that the company will make involves enabling a wider audience to make use of its “instant viewing” streaming service, which was launched just last year. At the time it was made available, the streaming feature was only available for Windows PCs running the Internet Explorer browser. Not only are plans in tow for Mac access early this year, but Netflix has also announced that the Mozilla Firefox browser will be supported.

“A key issue for delivering movies online is that the studios require use of DRM (Digital Rights Management) to protect titles,” stated Steve of the Netflix Community Blog last August. “And that's our holdup for the Mac - there's not yet a studio-sanctioned, publicly-available Mac DRM solution.”

Now that Microsoft's Silverlight with DRM capabilities is available for the Mac OS in beta, Netflix should be even closer to making the dreams of several offended Mac users (a quite unruly bunch) come true. Furthermore, just last week Netflix announced that it will being offering unlimited video streaming (previously limited depending on a user's DVD subscription plan) for a flat rate fee of $8.99 per month, which makes much more sense for those who may not be interested in renting and waiting for DVDs to arrive in the mail.

“Unlimited has always been a very powerful selling point with our subscribers,” mentioned Netflix chief marketing officer, Leslie Kilgore. “It became clear that, as with DVDs, the idea of streaming unlimited movies and TV episodes on a PC resonated quite strongly. And we're now in a good position to offer that.”

Add to all of this the fact that Netflix and LG have partnered to develop a set-top box and service to digitally download movies to your TV (to rival Apple TV and iTunes rentals), and you have what is beginning to look like a bright year for Netflix no matter what happens to the state of entertainment on DVD (or optical media in general, for that matter).