How To
Get The Most Out of
Your Netflix
Instant Account
For many Internet commenters and desk-chair pundits, there
is no more enjoyable pastime than ripping both the selection of
Netflix's streaming library and the amount it costs to access that
library each month. If there were an Internet Olympics, "Complaining
About Netflix" would doubtless be a marquee event, along with
"Slap-Fighting Over Apple And Android," "Mocking Research-In-Motion" and
"Threatening To Quit Facebook After A Redesign."
We've put together this small Netflix guide -- for Olympian Netflix
Bellyachers and otherwise -- to help you get the most out of your
Netflix, to really suck the marrow out of the bone of your subscription.
And while there's little you can personally do to improve Netflix's
catalogue (unless you are the President of HBO, in which case: We need
to talk) these tips and tricks can enhance your experience and the
quality of the films that get delivered to your eyeballs.
These little tidbits may not bring "The Wire" to your Instant Queue
(and believe me, there's no headline I would love to write more than
"OMAR'S COMIN' -- TO NETFLIX!"), but they should help you get more bang
for your eight bucks per month. So pause that episode of "Confessions: Animal Hoarding" and dive in:
Don't Watch A Movie Without Rating It
When you finish a show or movie on Netflix, the site requests that
you give it between one and five stars, based on how much you enjoyed
it. You're not being asked to rate that content for kicks, or so that
you can later reminisce about how much you liked a certain film: Rather,
Netflix has spent many years improving its recommendation engine, even
offering a $1 million prize for anyone who could up the accuracy of
Netflix recommendations by 10 percent.
At this point, the Netflix recommendation engine is pretty darn
accurate -- it takes into account your own ratings as well as the
viewing habits of those similar to you. Basically, the more films you
rate, the more you're likely to enjoy a Netflix recommendation. If you
constantly find yourself frustrated that there's nothing on Netflix,
take a half hour or so and knock out a few hundred ratings on the "Taste Profile" section of the site, and make sure you've filled in your genre preferences, too.
Finally, if Netflix persists in recommending a title that you're just
never going to watch -- for me, that would be "The Lincoln Lawyer" --
remember that you can click on the "Not Interested" button
on any film's homepage and it will disappear from your recommendations
page while simultaneously smartening up your future recs.
(For an in-depth look at the Netflix recommendation engine, and how it works, I recommend this post on Netflix's official blog.)
Don't Fly Blind
Leaning on Netflix's recommendations alone ensures that you'll
discover some good flicks; if you're really committed to shaking all the
leaves from the tree, however, you're going to need some backup
artillery. There are several excellent extensions that you can add to
your favorite browser to augment your Netflix experience and increase
your chances of sniffing out a great new film.
An extension like "Rotten Netflix,"
for example, inserts little Rotten Tomatoes scores beneath every movie
poster on the website, so that you can instantly know how a movie fared
with critics. Similarly, the "IMFlixDB" extension
displays a movie's IMDB ranking on a white bar above the Netflix
homepage and gives you quick access to that film's information page. The
ever-prodigious members at Reddit use the wisdom of crowds, meanwhile,
to constantly vote up streaming movies that you might otherwise miss.
It's a super-active community with consistently high-quality
recommendations: Check it out here.
Don't Let A Film Disappear
Another Netflix specialty website is InstantWatcher,
a clean website that allows for easier movie search than you'll find on
the Netflix homepage. And while many outlets toast InstantWatcher for
its quick and robust search functionality, we like it because it also
lists the notable films that will disappear from Netflix Instant soon.
There's even a Twitter feed that does nothing but tweet out the names of soon-to-be-expired Netflix movies.
There is no worse feeling, in the whole entire world, than sitting
down to watch a movie you've had in your Netflix queue only to discover
that the movie has disappeared. Don't let it happen to you again.
Don't Be Afraid To Quit
One of the really nice things about a Netflix subscription is that
you pay month-by-month; it's not like a cell phone contract where you're
locked in for two years and you have to pay an exorbitant fee if you
want to get out early or cancel service. With Netflix, you can quit for
one month and come back the next: Netflix will save your queue and
ratings for up to two years so that if you do come back, you don't
really have to start over.
So, if you're taking a vacation, or studying for the LSATs, or going
to prison, just cancel your account and save yourself the $8 for as long
as you need. Or, if you are one of our Olympian Netflix bashers from
above, go ahead and try life without the 'Flix for a month or two and
see how you do. Your account information will be waiting for you when
(or if) you return; and, hey, if you do, now you have plenty of new ways
to find the excellent movies and TV shows you might have missed while
in exile.
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