Fail #1: Netflix
Actually, Netflix' real fail was a couple weeks ago when Reed Hastings sent out his infamous email to Netflix subscribers. If you haven't heard, the email apologized for the handling of an earlier price-boost and then went on to announce the partitioning of Netflix' streaming and DVD-by-mail service. The separation of the two businesses isn't a bad idea nor is it unexpected given that it is no secret that Amazon has been courting Netflix' streaming service wishing to make a bigger play in the content delivery market. It's just that the handling of the whole thing was completely "ham-handed" to steal somebody else's perfect adjective.
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| Cool name... if it were 2002. |
But Netflix' fail for this week came on Wednesday night. As I logged in trying to update my DVD queue with a few horror selections for my annual Shocktoberfest movie marathon, I was greeted with a shortened queue of about 30 movies all with the play-now option next to them. This all seemed pretty peculiar given that the last time I checked, I had about 250 movies in my queue and besides that, I had dropped my streaming service back when Netflix announced the price-hike. Confused, I tried to access my account info but was met with an error-page. I then jumped over to qwikster.com thinking maybe the transition had already happened but no, it still wasn't up.
Meanwhile, back on the main Netflix site, I managed to get this screen-grab of my suggestions page:
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| Hi, Tom. |
If you're too lazy to click the picture for the larger view, let me just tell you... all of the suggested movies have an "Unavailable" button underneath the selection where it would usually say "Add to Queue" or "Play Now". So it appears I somehow caught Netflix with its pants down running some sort of transitional test for the upcoming Qwikster/Netflix divorce. Whatever the case, I wasn't too happy to not have access to my DVD queue for the night and it is clear that the streaming business is going to be seriously lacking in selections, as if we didn't know that already.
Fail #2: Major League Baseball
MLB just had its most exciting divisional series round ever. All four series were decided by one-run games, three of the four series went to the deciding fifth game with one going into extra innings and another featuring a marquis pitching match-up in a 1-0 game. Problem is, nobody saw the games. OK, not nobody but not that many either; especially if you live in the EST without cable or a dish. The games were on pay-station, TBS and each of the eight nights had one game starting after 8pm. I personally saw only two innings of the entire Tigers-Yankees series which had six of its five start times in "prime-time".
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| wah-wah |
Obvioulsy, MLB is going to put their games where and when it makes the most financial sense and if that's on TBS, well alright. But playoff games generally take a lot longer with more commercials and more pitching changes which means that an 8:37pm first pitch probably won' be over until well after 11pm at which time most working stiffs will have thrown in the towel. It would be interesting to see how many are tuned in at the start vs. the end of these late games. Why not start the games at 7pm Eastern? Even Albert Pujols was complaining about the start times and the Yankee-centric scheduling. Although his complaints were more about being relegated to late-afternoon games with unfavorable sunlight and shadows. But still, how about a little love for those of us who have to wake up early to make a few bucks that we then want to hold on to instead of handing over to the dish/cable oligopoly. Just sayin.
Fail #3: Steve Jobs' Pancreas
Too soon? Yeah, too soon. But I would like to give my personal Tip-of-the-Cap/ Wag-of-the-Finger to Mr. Jobs. He was a true visionary and a pretty good businessman to boot. You don't need me to tell you how Jobs' and Apple's products have routinely altered the arc of technology. They do make cool stuff. However, Apple would also have its customers believe that there was no such thing as cool stuff before Apple came around (at least since Jobs second tenure with the company). And that corporate attitude seems to echo if not result from Jobs' demeanor within the company. Apple treats its customers like idiots in the inflexibility and proprietary nature of their products. That arrogance is one of the reasons I have always resisted their products; certainly not the higher price tags. I suppose I prefer a more democratic product that might take an extra minute to figure out. But still, Steve Jobs, no denying you're the man.
