We Are Keeping Netflix Profiles
	Dear ike, You spoke [and spoke and spoke and spoke], and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are. We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you. -Your friends at Netflix

I hadn’t even gotten a chance to call up my clients at Netflix and complain yet! Thanks Netflix, for being the responsive company we knew you could be.

I heart Netflix. I really do.

Aside from providing a great service of movies and web 2.0esque interaction, I’ve been to their office a few times. They’re nice people and good customers of my company.

And, like many people, I live with someone who doesn’t have the exact same taste in movies I do. One would assume that would cause problems when we would both rate movies and kill our ability to receive good recommendations: I would rate all of Liz’s chick flicks a two and she’d trash all my sci fi movies. We’d end up watching Zoolander 24 hours a day.

Netflix thought of this scenario, I believe more in terms of kids selecting PG movies while Mom and Dad rented Emmanuelle, but it’s just as applicable in this situation. Using a second profile, Liz gets some movies and I get some movies. We rate them and get suggestions back separately. I would like them to add the ability for Liz to watch movies online, but other than that, the service is absolutely fantastic. Fits the need 100%.

There are two things, in my opinion, that make a web 2.0 site sticky (not BART floor sticky, but reasons that people from leaving… well, maybe it is like the floor on the BART):

1. The surfeit of information and time they put into customizing their environment
2. The features that got them to like the site in the first place

As we’ve seen time and again (Friendster=>MySpace=>Facebook) newer and better features will overcome effort. Web-based effort is cheap, I expend my free time with little thought of opportunity cost, but I focus it on tasks I care about. Features are expensive, if not invaluable, as I have little to no recourse to add anything new.

So Netflix has decided to take away their single best feature. I know why they did it, they think that Liz and I will either suffer through this indignity, merge our lists and move on with movie recommendations that have us only watching Will Ferrell and summer blockbusters. Or, even better for them, we’ll pay for two separate accounts. I’ll drop the volume of my account, raising the cost to movie ratio, and then they’ll double revenue when Liz is forced to get her own account.

Well, tell you what, Netfux, I have Blockbuster.com open in the next tab. If they offer profiles, you can say goodbye to my business. Maybe even if they don’t, I’ll go to Rotten Tomatoes and use their web 2.0 capability and still go with Blockbuster.

Idiots.

Damn near everywhere…

the three car pile up of the sidewalk.

I’d like to think that if I ever tottled along that slowly, I’d be considerate enough to take the bus.

currently touring the midwest like an aging hair band… no sleep ’til Wichita.

I don’t mean to rub it in for my friends, family and former neighbors still in the DC area, but I do mean to rub it in for all the dipshits in the government who’ve denied global warming. From WaPo:

The muggy heat that smothered the Washington region during the weekend may ratchet up even higher this afternoon, threatening to break the record of 102 degrees set in 1874.

I hope the AC goes out in your historic office buildings, assholes.

Update:And let’s not forget the man who would be Asshole in Chief.

Yes, I know.

I’m married.

I live in San Francisco.

My company was acquired.

I went from traveling weekly all over the east coast to traveling every month just about anywhere in the world.

Those are a damn lot of things that people might have opinions about. Enough opinions, one might say, to record them in some sort of internet journal. Had I such an internet journal, I bet it would write in it frequently. I bet I might even make up a clever nickname for internet journalling. Perhaps I will one day ijourn.

Why haven’t I written? I could give a hundred thousand excuses, but it’s been essentially a block. I’ve meant to tell you a hundred times, dear reader, of the trials and travails I’ve faced reading Stephen King. But as soon as I set thumb to space bar, the thoughts wouldn’t come.

Here’s the crux of it:

I was tricked into reading Stephen King. I’ve now read over 3500 pages of this stuff and almost completed the Dark Tower series. But I’ve opened myself to commentaries from every old lady that has ever boarded public transportation.
“I’m more of a Koontz fan.”
(I don’t care) — Or do I?
“It’s not like that kind of book.” — Or is it?
I don’t know, these are the only King novels I’ve read. I’m not going to let comics trick me into any more writers with front window space in Hudson News. I don’t want in on that debate.

Married life is good, thanks for asking. “Did it change anything?” The newly married girl at work wants to know. Not between Liz and I, I don’t think.

It may have changed us together. I feel a strong pull in the growing-uppy direction. I make dinner two or three nights a week, when I would’ve just thrown in a lean cuisine a couple months ago. Little things. It’s nice to have the Leal out hang out with and not feel lame about getting older.

I very much heart the bay area. This lifestyle fits me like a glove. I don’t miss having a car. The weather’s a bit chilly and breezy, but I just walk a bit faster and I can still wear a t-shirt. I’m a fall-spring person. That is the truth.

I do miss my family and DC friends terribly, particularly little Griffer. He seems to be doing well without me and will be visiting next month. Can you believe he’s about to go into middle school? F-ing crazy…

And so I moved 2000 miles from DC and my company is bought by one based outside Baltimore. Luckily, I wasn’t taken by complete surprise. I came out here with some assurances that I’d be okay. It’s a bit of a joke in the company, but looking at it from this coast, I’m not sure I would’ve escaped the ax in my old position. I could’ve been thrown back into government contracting, a fate worse than meth.

One big change is the travel. I based my travel anticipations on how much my new boss was on the road. But his new boss came out for our first orientation and told us, “We want traveling Product Managers. My team blew out the travel budget and I loved it.”

I can blow out a travel budget, I’ll see you at the Ritz! The Ritz is the truth.

Shortly I realized they meant I would be in Costa Rica while my boss was in Australia. I guess it fits that I ducked out to the UK to avoid the meeting where they announced the acquisition. I’ll be doing a tour of the east coast in a couple weeks, evangelizing some buzzwords and letting other people define them. Easier than Sales, this should be called Buys.

What else… what else… Liz and I are looking into getting a French Bulldog. It’s the toughest looking small-medium sized dog and also quite cute in its wee toughness.

Barack Obama is going to be the leader of the free world and that is the truth.