Updated Wide Personalized Netflix Site

[Adrian]

We just updated the web site with a big change that we have been working on for months, all the pages are in a wider frame, so we can show more movies or bigger box-shots. The Browse DVD and Browse Instant pages are completely new and follow a similar row based format that personalizes choices for each user. Most other pages have cosmetic upgrades with the new wide "look". Some less used pages just have extra white space on the right side for now.

There was a known problem with Blue-Ray and HD-DVD users, a column of information that shows the format and allows you to change it should be shown in the queue for these users only, and it didn't appear. This was fixed, along with a few less visible issues Friday morning March 28th.

See also the Netflix blog post by Meghan
http://blog.netflix.com/2008/03/netflix-now-wider-more-personalized...

We are very interested to know what you all think of the changes, we are going to continue to tinker with it as we figure out how well its working. Many thanks for all the comments and discussion we have had here. Over-all we are very happy with how it is going.

I'd also like to assure everyone that this big update has nothing to do with the downtime on monday, they are totally unrelated. One lingering after-affect of the downtime is that some users don't have their ratings available the first time they visit, so the site doesn't make good suggestions. Apologies for this problem, it will get better over time.

Enjoy...
Adrian from Netflix

[Nathan]

Netflix got rid of the Instant Recommendations (aside from the very few they show on the Instant page). I really miss that feature. How should one complain about these things?

[jampony]

You could call customer service (1-888-638-3549); have your six-digit customer identification number handy (there's a link on the bottom of every page). You could also try sending them a suggestion (click on Contact Us in the footer of every page and then click on Suggestions). I've done it a few times. I don't know if anyone reads them, but it sure makes me feel better! :D

[wowwee123]

I got some of my recommendations back, go to the page where you rated the movies, and simply click on the 4 & 5 stars the star amount - if you keeping a 4 star a four - click four stars even though it's already there. Go through all your ratings one at a time. You will notice the suggestions go up because of that. This has worked for me, and I even decided then to be more strict on the ratings and changed a lot of 5's to fours and so on.

[Adrian]

The Browse Instant page is personalized to show you instant Recommendations, and if you check out the sub-genres it picks for certain rows you can rate the sub-genre highly to get it more often, or low to make it go away. You can also click on the sub-genre name to get more recommendations in that area. It may take a few sessions to train it, but over-all I've found that it does a better job than the old page for finding me things I want to watch.

The old page is dead and gone at this point, but we are continuing to work on improving the row choice and movie selection within the new format. If you can explain what you are missing in more detail then we may be able to help. If what you want is "Instant movies you'll love" then that could be a row of movies based on very high star rating predictions perhaps...

Adrian from Netflix

[radman_w156]

In my que the "Availability" column is there but it is empty. Is this a known issue with the new que/website or is it me?

Thanks

[radman_w156]

I thought of that but found it hard to believe. I usually have 200 or so movies in my cue and I don't think that has ever happened before so I figured something was wrong. Cool! I will keep my fingers crossed.

Thanks.

[radman_w156]

I did the test you suggested and all seems to be well. Apparently the fact I am requesting BluRay whenever possible is part of my confusion too. When I changed a couple of the hot titles to DVD and updated and/or refreshed my browser they did have a wait. I suppose the demand for BluRay is not nearly as great but I didn't even think of that.

Thanks again for the feedback.

[Robowriter]

Adrian, I like the broader, cleaner design in general (though I'm sad to see the tighter, more compact design go bye-bye). One question: Is there any way to again see All Genres, movies by decade, movies by language, and movies by studio?

[Heather]

At the very bottom of the page under the Genres listing should be an option for See all Genres, otherwise, here's a handy link:

http://www.netflix.com/AllGenres?lnkctr=ph_ag

:]

[Robowriter]

Thanks Heather. I have since seen an All Genres link on any actor's page.

[Shiza]

I think being able to make custom home pages would be a good idea and give us the option of what we want to see on the front page.

[James]

I would really like an answer to this... I had posted this several weeks ago and I saw that a few other people posted similar question and it has not been addressed... I admit I am not in love with several of the changes made, but I can learn to live with them or work around them, however this is a MAJOR issue for me...

*******

Is this also effecting the ability for NF to tell me what I will think of a movie??? Right now it is only telling me what the average customer rating is and is suggesting movies I know last week it had said I would not like...

For example, I have looked several times at "A Mighty Heart" as I am a big Angelina Jolie fan, but I have not added it to my queue as NF has said I would not like it, it had said it would be under a 3 (I think it was like a 2.5??). Today it is on my front page and listing the 3.3 customer average...

Also why is it taking into consideration movies in my queue that I have not yet rated? I can see if it listed 3 movies, 2 that had been rated and one in my queue but I have some that are only based on 2 - both of which I have not rated yet, they are merely in my queue - I could end up hating them...