Netflix Offering Streaming Movies

One of my favorite web applications and companies is we'll start to see that in the coming weeks as Netflix is set to release a streaming downloadable movie service. And what's more, is that it's basically free to their current customers. If you have the standard Netflix subscription of three movies at a time, you'll get 18 hours of free streaming movie watching time. That's essentially 9-10 streaming movies per month. Why streaming? Well, according to Netflix it's instant gratification so you don't have to wait hours for a movie to download. That's nice, and it also allows you to start a movie and sample it before deciding if you want to keep watching. This sounds like a great way to browse movies to see if they're worth watching in full. It also makes it easy that if I started watching a movie on one computer and had to move to another, I could pick it back up later. The downside I see to this is I couldn't download a movie to watch on a plane or while offline. I guess that's why a DVD is still useful! Good luck to Netflix in the internet movie space, I expect them to do well based on how they've handled their current business. UPDATE: Netflix has a seems to be winning back Michael Arrington, and Hacking Netflix has My Favorite Web Application: Netflix Great Movie Stub Idea Companies That Will Be Acquired in 2006 Right Media, the business unit owner for Conversion Rater blog