Netflix kills their "Releasing This Week" list

I've been using the Netflix "Releasing This Week" list for almost a year,
but couldn't access it on their website today. So I called Netflix customer
service on the telephone, and sure enough, it has been officially dropped
from their website. There has been no better or quicker way to scan and
evaluate new weekly movie rental releases, so naturally I registered my
strong objections with them, FWIW.

The Blockbuster website has almost the same list as Netflix, but doesn't
have automatic popups to give the important movie info. Also the Blockbuster
movie info is generally inferior in design and content to the Netflix info,
IMHO. The main thing I want to see quickly are the date when it become
available to rent, rating, year the movie was released, main actor names,
length in minutes or hours, color or black & white, genre(s), aspect ratio,
and a very brief description. Blockbuster's info is too lengthy, while being
incomplete and imprecise.

With the Netflix "Releasing This Week" list, I could usually scan and
evaluate everything (perhaps 50-100 moves) in only 5-10 minutes. Now it will
take me at least an hour, perhaps two, to do the same thing by other means.

I'll probably end up copying the Blockbuster release list to a notepad, then
enter each of those movie titles into the Netflix search box. That will work
reasonably OK, just take a lot longer. But of course it will miss some new
Netflix releases, because they sometimes have more new titles than
Blockbuster.

So what's their rationale? Are they deliberately trying to discourage rental
of new movie releases? Or are they shooting themselves in the foot out of
pure stupidity??

PapaBear

PapaBear wrote:
>
> So what's their rationale? Are they deliberately trying to discourage rental
> of new movie releases? Or are they shooting themselves in the foot out of
> pure stupidity??

I guess they assumed everyone was already using the RSS feed by now:
feed://rss.netflix.com/NewReleasesRSS

Derek Janssen (let's see, that's three groups now we've had to post the
link)

Derek Janssen

the feed has not been updated for 2 months

"Derek Janssen" <> wrote in message
news:MxZbj.1278$si6.39@trndny08...
> PapaBear wrote:
>>
>> So what's their rationale? Are they deliberately trying to discourage
>> rental
>> of new movie releases? Or are they shooting themselves in the foot out of
>> pure stupidity??
>
> I guess they assumed everyone was already using the RSS feed by now:
> feed://rss.netflix.com/NewReleasesRSS
>
> Derek Janssen (let's see, that's three groups now we've had to post the
> link)
>

GREG NIEMI

GREG NIEMI wrote:

>>>So what's their rationale? Are they deliberately trying to discourage
>>>rental
>>>of new movie releases? Or are they shooting themselves in the foot out of
>>>pure stupidity??
>>
>>I guess they assumed everyone was already using the RSS feed by now:
>>feed://rss.netflix.com/NewReleasesRSS
>
> the feed has not been updated for 2 months

What, the "New Releases This Week" feed?
Been pretty faithful every Sunday, yesterday included (if you can call
Jackass 2.5 and Brothers Solomon "major" releases).

I know there's more than one Netflix feed, but never subscribed to the
others.

Derek Janssen

Derek Janssen

I looked at rss.netflix on the news groups
"Derek Janssen" <> wrote in message
news:uVZbj.1405$si6.402@trndny08...
> GREG NIEMI wrote:
>
>>>>So what's their rationale? Are they deliberately trying to discourage
>>>>rental
>>>>of new movie releases? Or are they shooting themselves in the foot out
>>>>of
>>>>pure stupidity??
>>>
>>>I guess they assumed everyone was already using the RSS feed by now:
>>>feed://rss.netflix.com/NewReleasesRSS
> >
>> the feed has not been updated for 2 months
>
> What, the "New Releases This Week" feed?
> Been pretty faithful every Sunday, yesterday included (if you can call
> Jackass 2.5 and Brothers Solomon "major" releases).
>
> I know there's more than one Netflix feed, but never subscribed to the
> others.
>
> Derek Janssen
>

GREG NIEMI

GREG NIEMI wrote:
> "Derek Janssen" <> wrote in message
> news:uVZbj.1405$si6.402@trndny08...
>
>>GREG NIEMI wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>>So what's their rationale? Are they deliberately trying to discourage
>>>>>rental
>>>>>of new movie releases? Or are they shooting themselves in the foot out
>>>>>of
>>>>>pure stupidity??
>>>>
>>>>I guess they assumed everyone was already using the RSS feed by now:
>>>>feed://rss.netflix.com/NewReleasesRSS

> I looked at rss.netflix on the news groups

Well, that's odd, as you usually need an RSS reader or enabled web
browser (eg. Safari 2.0, if you're on MacOSX/Windows), not a Usenet
reader...
Are you sure we're talking about the right thing?

Derek Janssen (he asked, automatically assuming we're not)

Derek Janssen

I have outlook express, if you put in netflix, it will come up rss.netflix
"Derek Janssen" <> wrote in message
news:sE%bj.5298$yC6.2602@trndny05...
> GREG NIEMI wrote:
>> "Derek Janssen" <> wrote in message
>> news:uVZbj.1405$si6.402@trndny08...
>>
>>>GREG NIEMI wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>So what's their rationale? Are they deliberately trying to discourage
>>>>>>rental
>>>>>>of new movie releases? Or are they shooting themselves in the foot out
>>>>>>of
>>>>>>pure stupidity??
>>>>>
>>>>>I guess they assumed everyone was already using the RSS feed by now:
>>>>>feed://rss.netflix.com/NewReleasesRSS
>
>> I looked at rss.netflix on the news groups
>
> Well, that's odd, as you usually need an RSS reader or enabled web browser
> (eg. Safari 2.0, if you're on MacOSX/Windows), not a Usenet reader...
> Are you sure we're talking about the right thing?
>
> Derek Janssen (he asked, automatically assuming we're not)
>

GREG NIEMI

"Derek Janssen" <> wrote in message
news:MxZbj.1278$si6.39@trndny08...
> PapaBear wrote:
>>
>> So what's their rationale? Are they deliberately trying to discourage
>> rental
>> of new movie releases? Or are they shooting themselves in the foot out of
>> pure stupidity??
>
> I guess they assumed everyone was already using the RSS feed by now:
> feed://rss.netflix.com/NewReleasesRSS

I've been fiddling with computers for about 25 years as a hobby, but there's
still a lot I don't know. Obviously I'm not a computer genius. For example,
I hear a lot about Ipods, and I guess I'll learn about them eventually, but
at this point have no idea what they are. Similarly, I know nothing about
RSS. If it will provide the same thing as the former "Releasing This Week"
on the Netflix website, I'm very interested, of course. But...how do I make
it work?

If I enter "feed://rss.netflix.com/NewReleasesRSS" into my IE6 browser
address window, it says "The page cannot be displayed". If I replace "feed"
with "http", it only gives a bunch of technical computer code. I'm all
ears...

PapaBear

I sorta figured it out using something called Google Reader, and managed to
get a RSS feed subscription to Netflix new releases. But it's not the same
as was on the Netflix website as "Releasing This Week", because it doesn't
have the automatic popup movie descriptions when hovering over a movie, they
aren't organized into a simple list of genres, etc. It's far less
satisfactory. I'm not happy with it. I believe RSS is far too technical for
the ordinary person to access it. As you can see, I'm capable of such
things, but I'm already straining my brain beyond belief. I fear apoplexy if
I continue with such complications...

PapaBear

On Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:24:03 GMT, PapaBear wrote:

> I've been using the Netflix "Releasing This Week" list for almost a year,
> but couldn't access it on their website today.

Try this:
http://www.netflix.com/AllNewRelease...AllNewReleases

Also Hacking Netflix - scroll down:
http://www.hackingnetflix.com/

Kuskokwim