And then, you realize you should remove Joe Dirt from your queue.

A few weeks back, Ben and I and a few others were discussing how Netflix should allow its users to share their rental histories in some form. This way, users can easily see what their friends have watched and easily add titles that pique their interests to their own queues.

I know that I find it incredibly difficult to keep a queue of more than 15-20 titles because I can never remember the films that I wanted to see in the past. And since, in the two and a half months that we've been using Netflix, I have picked out all but one of the 33 movies we've rented, I need all the help I can get.

After Jish posted this entry about what's on his queue, I persuaded (read: nagged) Ben to create a plugin for Movable Type that would pull out your queue from Netflix and allow you to display it on a MT-powered weblog. Our original idea displayed histories, but we figured that since your 3-month history is always made up of items on your queue, that would be sufficient. Still, posting only a history might make more sense since I'm not too sure if I want someone adding a movie from my queue onto their own list. Already, the availability of about a half of the films on our list is some sort of wait.

Oh well.

Read more about the plugin on Ben's site.

The plugin can be downloaded from here. Usage instructions are in the netflix-queue.pl file, or here.

Our queue can be found at the bottom of my about page

Comments

[Daniel]

i've been debating signing up for netflix for a couple of months, is it worth it? have you encountered any problems? it seems like a great service, i've just wondered how their users like it and no one i know has tried it yet.

[Camille]

that is cool. thanks!

[ste]

I gave Netflix a trial run about 2-3 years ago (when it first started up), and it was really cool. Unfortunately, where I was living at the time, the mail was *really* slow so it would take a week to a week and a half for a movie to arrive. Now I'm seriously considering signing up again once I've got a job :)

[Alison]

Netflix has been pretty good to me. The only downside to it for me right now is that I'm working an insane amount of hours, so the three DVDs that I have will sit there for a couple of weeks.

Oh, and one of my rentals got lost in the mail (on the way to me from them), and they had a new one out to me 2 days after I e-mailed them about it. I thought that was pretty cool.

[vis10n]

I've been using Netflix since the beginning (back when you could still get an actual e-mail from the founder). I love it... I'm on the 6 movie menu. Very fun.

I've got 190 movies in my queue, and I get most of them without a wait... of course, I'm not sure what that says about my taste in movies though.

The idea of a Netflix plug-in for MT is excellent, Mena! ...now, if only we could get the folks at BookSense to get a clue about direct linking to titles and wish lists.

*sigh*

[denise]

i have to say that we've been very happy with netflix. we save so much money because we were always, always late returning videos to blockbuster. we live in dallas and they've opened a distribution center in houston so we're getting 1 day turnarounds on movies.

[Morgan]

Wow, Netflix should be giving you guys a cut. This is such a cool idea it might be the shove over the edge I need to sign up for their service.

[Morgan]

Wow, Netflix should be giving you guys a cut. This is such a cool idea it might be the shove over the edge I need to sign up for their service.

... And I should point out that your queue reads like my intro to film course-load.

[Carla]

I live in Seattle and they have a distribution center nearby also so I've been really happy with the same day turn around. I've been almost completely happy with Netflix, I came back to it almost 2 months ago after using it for so long.

If you want to put some new releases in your queue, get ready... you may need to wait a long time. I've had "A Beautiful Mind" in my queue since it came out and it still says it's going to be a long wait. What I don't get is why they don't buy more copies to speed things up. They can always sell extra copies in the end. I've ended up going to a video store to rent movies that were in my queue that I didn't have the patience to wait for.

Wonderful idea :)

[Jg]

This is a super shnazzy idea.

I'd post mine on my site, but my queue is somewhere around 256 movies -- there's a lot I'm catching up on.

THE HUSTLER is fabulous. Bump it up a few dozen spots.

[Jg]

This is a super shnazzy idea.

I'd post mine on my site, but my queue is somewhere around 256 movies -- there's a lot I'm catching up on.

THE HUSTLER is fabulous. Bump it up a few dozen spots.

[vis10n]

Oh... sorry, Carla... I had "A Beautiful Mind" for a couple of weeks. Just returned it. Maybe you're next in line for it?

Also, another idea that would be nice (if anyone from Netflix is watching), would be a way for me to give them DVDs I already own -- to build their library -- in exchange for free months or the like. Here's my rationale: I rent DVDs because I don't see the logic of buying something that probably isn't going to survive the next shift in play-back technologies. I imagine there're others that think like I do, and (like me) have pre-epiphanal DVDs in their posession.

Anyway, just an idea.

[Cristiane]

That's a cool list, including some of my favorites. My favorite actress ever is Barbara Stanwyck, so I'm happy to see The Lady Eve and Double Indemnity on your list. If it's Barbara that you like, you might want to check out Lady of Burlesque - it's a lot of fun. However, I would beware of Barry Lyndon - it's incredibly long and boring - but incredibly beautiful. One of those "you could take any frame of the film and put in on the wall" movies - like "Days of Heaven."

[Charles]

Hey Mena,
Netflix has a referer programme. I think it's 5 bucks if someone new signs up. You all may want to consider a link or something along with the plugin. That way, if someone new signs on, it would be $5 for MT. Just a thought . . .

[Alejandra]

I was never really happy with them, because the movie I had on que were always out of stock and backordered. Plus it took too long for me to get them, since I'm in Chicago.

I figured I had to see a minimum of 4 movies a month to get my money's worth. It doesn't seem like a lot and it seems do-able, but with the slow delivery it was almost impossible.

It's great for people on the West coast because -- bam! -- you're right there, but not so good for east.

Also, when I tried closing the account, it took me forever to actually find a place on the website that said "CLOSE ACCOUNT." I ended up calling them to do so. This was about 2-3 years ago, so the site interface may have changed.

I do admit, however, that they have an incredible selection of movies, especially foreign and more obscure titles.

[Kelly]

Regarding the comments about Netflix being slow in the past... They seem to have expanded their distribution network. We are in the Midwest, and our movies get shipped back to a nearby state. Likewise, the turnaround time on discs is much faster than it used to be.

Thanks for the plugin!

[leandra]

We use rentmyDVD.com instead of Netflix. I'm not quite sure how we found out about them, but they have a great selection of hard to find DVDs that you would never see at Blockbuster. The turnaround is (unfortunately) about 10 days, but we can usually get 4/5 movies a month since they ship 2 at a time. I don't think any of those online places have a hub in the southeast, so it will never be a 2/3 day turnaround until that happens. :(

[Charles]

I think Netflix did recently expand and improve their service. We used to receive DVDs from Silicon Valley and it took 4-5 days. About six months ago, they opened a distribution center in Houston, and it now only takes 1-2 days.

[ctrent]

netflix recently got an atlanta distribution center, which helped me. but i don't like the idea of sharing my queue -- 'cause part of the beauty of netflix is getting movies i'd be embarassed to rent at a real store. i do netflix because i don't want anyone to know i actually wanted to see "rockstar". "rockstar" by the way, is the worst movie ever made.

[ME-L]

Wow. A ways back I emailed Netflix (which, by the way, I'm pretty happy with -- their service has much improved) with this very idea. Bloggers are more likely to generate referrals, and some of them write about what movies they see, and here's this content already sitting there, so why not make it exportable? Unfortunately, they never responded. And now you've gone and done it! Yay! But I'm not an MT user. Boo. Maybe this will push me over the edge, as I've been considering it for some time.

Great movie queue, by the way -- with the possible exception of Shallow Hal, but hey, we all need a silly movie now and then.

[dino]

I couldn't find the netflix phone number in their website. Does any body know it? Looks very unethical to me, isn't.

[Mr don]

i dont know what the heck ur talking about u cheap cow pig mothafucka

[Ted]

Where can I get a blog script? Does this thing support html tags? I wanna make a blog about ny Cute Black Pussy

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There's a whole list of them here. I have a great Bondage blog if you are into that sort of thing!

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