Netflix is a social site that was founded by Marc Randolph a former employee of the Pure Software in 1997. The company provides streaming media for those with the Netflix account.It was just three years before the onset of the two interface web (2.0 Web). This period proved to be the most challenging time of its operation and almost led to its downfall and possibility of being obsolete if it could not upgrade its system and service to that web era. The subscription is based on the regional place within which the possible customer is located in the world as some countries have not been included for the Netflix service provision. The social site has almost the same qualities as YouTube except for the fact that its services are not freely provided (Rachael, 2013).
The community has many characteristic including the fact that its members are people of like minds, family and friends. These people can therefore see and share the videos of one subscriber amongst themselves. This feature was done away with in the year 2013, citing the misuse of that privilege by the community members who used such opportunities to exploit the company and hack into other people accounts. Through this, they were able to do their dirty business of selling the contents of the site without the company’s permissions.
The community is based on the cloud computing; this is a feature that has helped in ensuring that the business costs for the community members are cut down, and helped them re-invent models of their businesses. This is one feature that has helped the members to create businesses that have been able to bring about the disruptive innovation in the market. As the information got from other members are so vast and very detailed and so are the ideas from them.
The benefits that the participants get includes being able to rate the videos and the movies. The rating was, therefore, done using a scale of 1-5 with one being the lowest on the ranking. But of late the company has employed the use of likes and dislikes in the rating of the videos. The customers can get information about all the feed entries pertaining to the videos. The feed entries include playlist feed entry which gives an identification to a video on a given playlist, user event feed, video and favorite video feed entries. This feature has helped the other members of the community to waste no time trying to figure out if the video is worth downloading or not as the comments, and the ratings will tell it all.
Giving their opinion by commenting on the videos is another benefit that the community has. These comments can be deleted or modified after being posted though this is one feature that lacked in the earlier days of Netflix operations. Each comment posted will always have the details of the author, title and its content. The subscribers also use this platform to air their complaints if the contents of the video or movie just not live up to their expectations. The complaints though cannot be modified or deleted. Such information helps the company to correct the contents of such videos or delete them off the site.
The community has another benefit to its members, which is the fact that the members get detailed and vast information on their fields of interest. This means that they can improve their businesses or start one having the necessary knowledge on how it can be ran and any other necessary information. Most members are always people of like minds in a given field of interest. Through the addition of Facebook features to the site, the community members are able to contact the whole world from the website and get views pertaining to a given video or movie of their interest before they can use the contents of such productions (Datoo, 2014).
Another benefit that a member is bound to enjoy is the fact that they are able to view their videos anytime they want provided their subscriptions are still active. This means that they are able to collect or download their favorite videos at their own leisure time. This has helped ensure that the members are also able to watch any news that they wanted to as this is not subjective to when the program is shown on a TV channel.
All the four benefits discussed above have motivated many subscribers into joining such communities. This is because they are assured of quality service and a chance to get whatever information they need to depend on their field of interest. The subscribers have also been promised better packages by the company on joining such communities. These are in the form of lower prices, getting some videos for free on buying a full package of a specific number.
The site has created a community by setting clear goals under which the community should operate. This involves how the company wants the community to operate, what kind of people its members should be, what is expected of the community as a whole and its individual members. This feature also ensures that the goals are logical and can be achieved.
References
Datoo, S. (2014, January 14). How Netflix uses your data to work out what you want it to commission. Retrieved from theguardian: http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/mar/07/netflix-data-house-cards
Rachael , H. (2013, February 1). Web 2.0 Case Study – Netflix. Retrieved from Marketing on the Internet Blog: http://rachaelhartford.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/web-2-0-case-study-netflix/
