Netflix, the Jobs Keynote

I got the following email from Netflix this afternoon:

Subject: New! Watch instantly on your PC as often as you want

Dear Sebastien,

As part of your current Netflix subscription, you have the option to watch some movies and TV episodes from the Netflix library instantly on your PC at no additional charge. Now, we've made it unlimited!

So watch instantly on your PC when you want, and as often as you want. Select from our separate, smaller library of over 6,000 familiar movies and TV episodes available to watch instantly.

- Your friends at Netflix

I love Netflix, and always have since I started using them way back in my sophomore year of college. Reed Hastings originally envisioned a service where users could watch movies directly from the comfort of their home without having to go down to the video store. Originally, he founded the company to directly compete with the nonsense one had (and still has) to put up with at Lackluster...err..Blockbuster Video.

After over ten years in service, the company has seen its competitors move out of the realm of store-based movie rental and into the very concept that he had originally planned out. Unfortunately, it's taken the rest of the world (especially the lazy degenerate assholes at the major motion picture studios) quite some time to realize that the future of movie watching is not in shuffling down to the video store to deal with scratched discs, long lines, and late fees. And now Netflix is facing off against the likes of Apple, Blockbuster (again), Comcast, Microsoft, and many others in the battle over downloadable movies.

It's little surprise that Netflix announced the above policy this week. What's funnier about this fact is that the announcement was actually made yesterday. The system went in place, and I logged in last night to find myself with unlimited time for online movie watching. Yet this email came out this afternoon, coincidentally just a few hours after the details of Steve Jobs' keynote regarding iTunes movie rental surfaced.

So what's the damage in terms of stock price today?

NFLX 22.05 -0.72 (-3.16%)
AAPL 169.04 -9.74 (-5.45%)

To be fair, it wasn't the most pleasant of days in Wall Street; but this is interesting to see both get hit. Apple went down progressively through the day, perhaps as more news about their products hit the public. Netflix dropped to 20.99 about halfway through the day, (about the time the Jobs keynote concluded) and regained more than a point by the end of the day.

So what does that tell us about online movie rentals, technology, Wall Street, et cetera? Not a whole lot, other than the fact that investors aren't the brightest if they see today as a bad day for Netflix and Apple. I think both of these companies are competing strongly with the current market, while they're both innovating (read: creating and owning a new industry). 2008 should be a strong year for Netflix with their Instant Watching feature finally seeing real expansion. Apple will do well if their rental service stays strong and they release a new version of the iPhone. (They'll also do well if the latest Macbook Air doesn't turn out to break if you move it.)

Speaking of which, I watched the keynote, and was mildly entertained. Jobs certainly didn't seem quite as "on" as he was last year. And come on, Randy Newman? I hate that guy. Randy Newman sucks and his music is elevator music with lyrics that mimic the lines from a Family Circus comic. As much as I detest the current administration in Washington, I am pretty sure that it's not the most appropriate or sensible thing to start comparing them to Hitler, Stalin, and the Spanish Inquisition at the Steve Jobs keynote. It felt like he took a wrong turn and wound up there rather than at a MoveOn party.

Damn he sucks. His voice is so annoying. He sounds like he should be telling them kids to get off his lawn.

The Whole Foods crime of good food

Whole Foods Market, the company that's expanded significantly over the past decade into the country's largest natural foods supermarket, is an excellent source for [almost] everything food-related. Ever since one opened near me in the Boston area, I shopped there for about 95% of my groceries, dropping my frequenting of the local Stop & Shop pretty suddenly. There was so much to be desired about the store. It was clean, pleasant, the people were nice, and -- most importantly -- the food was a lot better.

Having moved out to California, I was glad to find one a few blocks from my home that's even better than the one near me at home. Yet as I talked to friends and coworkers of mine in similar circumstances (just out of college, in their first real careers), I was somewhat surprised to hear such animosity towards the store. Primarily, it's a cost issue. There's a common misconception that products are more expensive at Whole Foods. It's an argument I love getting into, because these people are just so damned sure that they're right. They're convinced that because their bills are higher when they leave Whole Foods than when they leave Safeway or Trader Joe's, that the store is more expensive. What they forget to note is what they're buying.

Let's look at a common grocery list of products I may buy from either Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. I don't have comparable receipts on hand, but I do have a pretty good recollection of costs:

• Half gallon of milk: $2.50 - $3.00 at both WFM and TJ's
• Loaf of sandwich break: $3.50 at both WFM and TJ's
• Frozen pizza: $6.00 at both WFM and TJ's
• 4 sticks of butter: $2.50 at both WFM and TJ's
• Bag of lettuce: $2.00 at both WFM and TJ's
• etc. etc.

"OMG so why is it that whenever I go to Whole Foods I wind up spending twice as much as I do at Trader Joe's?!" Well for the answer to that, I'd suggest actually looking at your bill. Specifically, what are you buying at Whole Foods that you're not buying at Trader Joe's? Could it be that $10 Wolfgang Puck frozen pizza? The $10 six pack of imported beer? The $30 bottle of amazing olive oil? The $12 chocolate shaver? Yeah, that all adds up. But you don't have to buy it.

The funny thing about Whole Foods is that they have a much wider selection of goods for purchase than other grocery stores. And yet that's what corners them into the "high end market" corner that dissuades many cost-conscious consumers from shopping there regularly. So yes, in a sense they're being punished for loving good food products and sharing their passion with the public.

On a side-note, I do have a mini rant about the place. I went there yesterday to buy groceries, including supplies for a salmon dish. Everything was going fine until I started looking for French vermouth. Unsure of where it might be, I asked one of the employees, who looked at me like I had asked where their shovebo doorlocks were.

"Hi, do you know where your French vermouth is?"
*quizzical look*
"...or, if you have it...?"
"Um...what is it?"
"French vermouth? Or just vermouth?"
"Uh...I don't know what that is."
"Well, it's an alcoholic product."
"Oh, well then check over there" *points to beer and wine section*
"Yeah, thanks."

Brilliant. The French vermouth would be in the wine and beer section? I would have never guessed. At least when I got over there, I was pointed to the two types of vermouth they did have. (Neither were French, but the extra dry worked out fine.)

P.S.
The Atlantic salmon steak I picked up from them was amazing. Damn their food is good.

Internet marketing

The longer I work in the internet industry, the more I see of the burgeoning market of "online consumer." I wonder how many business schools have begun looking at this group of consumers in a new light.

I imagine a common misconception of many businesses and their marketing departments is that the internet is merely an outlet for selling their product. They see it as the equivalent to television, radio, billboards, direct mail, et cetera. If you're selling a soft drink, for instance, you'll want to advertise Bob Cola on billboards to advertise to drivers, on television to appeal to the large television audience, on radio to appeal to another audience, and in direct mail to appeal hit people in yet another audience. It's what advertising is about, right?

How proper is it, however, to see the internet in the same way? If Bob Cola advertises on the web by producing a web site, they can say on the web site "buy Bob Cola! It's tasty!" They can allow viewers to see their ads, allow for downloadable screensavers, etc. How effective is that, though?

I propose that the proper way for a marketing department or any advertiser to envision the internet is to imagine it as a secondary world, within which various mediums exist in which to advertise. Google AdWords is like advertising on television, web site banners are billboards, streaming radio is regular radio, and so on.

Slow email day

Ever had a slow email day? As someone who's only worked in offices since getting out of college, email has obviously been a key form of communication. On occasion, I've noticed days on which you can go for literally hours without a single email. It's kind of frightening (which I'm sure is a sad sign of the times).

Today was definitely one of those days. Looking at my work email account, I went for almost four hours between 11:52am and 3:48pm without a single email from someone. It's kind of disconcerting, and led me to go so far as to test out the system to see if emails weren't coming through. They are, so it must just be one of those days. Even my Gmail account is surprisingly bereft of new emails.

An Iowa Caucus to remember

...Or not. I'm sure by now anyone who so much as breathes in the presence of a computer knows the results of the Iowa Caucus for 2008. Still, take a moment, and read the following, taken from CNN this evening (with the names of the candidates removed):

With all Democratic precincts reporting, ___ had the support of 38 percent of voters, compared to 30 percent for ___ and 29 percent for ___.

"The numbers tell us this was a debate between change and experience, and change won," said CNN political analyst Bill Schneider...

On the GOP side, ___, whose campaign was languishing six months ago, and ___ are now tied for first place in New Hampshire, according to the poll, which was released Wednesday.

___ left Iowa before caucus night even began. He was already in New Hampshire by Thursday afternoon, trying to get a jump on his rivals...

___, who has turned the focus of his campaign to the February 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries, trailed with 4 percent.

"We've paid a lot of attention to states that some other candidates haven't paid a lot of attention to," ___ said, adding, "Time will tell what the best strategy is."

___ was vastly outspent by ___, who poured millions of dollars into a sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation.

"People really are more important than the purse, and what a great lesson for America to learn," ___ said in thanking his supporters.

For most of 2007, ___ languished in the single digits in the polls and had very little success raising money. But his momentum picked up in the final six weeks of the year when social conservatives -- an important voting bloc in Iowa -- began to move his way.

"We won the silver ... You win the silver in one event. It doesn't mean you're not going to come back and win the gold in the final event, and that we are going to do," ___ said.

Boring, isn't it? More importantly, my point is just that these people all sound and behave the same. We act so tired of the same old crap when it comes to politicians. We get tired of politicians acting like politicians with smooth talking, corruption, and idiocy; yet we continue to elect them.

So next election, when those people are languishing with less than 1% of the vote, how about you not laugh at them? Maybe they're not doing well because they don't know how to be politicians; and maybe that's what we need for once.

Russian tea cakes

Russian tea cakes are amazing. For the uninitiated, these are the hard little cakes containing nuts and coated in powdered sugar. There are variations on them, and they go under various names. I've heard they're very much like certain Greek and Italian pastries as well.

Check out the recipe and make them yourself. Note that the sugar you use in the dough is powdered/confectioner, resulting in a very fine dough. Also, there are no eggs, resulting in the harder cake.

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans, toasted
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts, toasted
Additional powdered sugar (approximately 1 cup) for coating cakes

Preparation
Sift flour and salt together in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, cream butter in large bowl until light. Gradually add 1/2 cup sugar and beat until fluffy. Add vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients in 3 stages. Mix in nuts by hand. Refrigerate dough for at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Form dough into 1-inch balls. Space 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until just firm to touch and lightly browned, about 13 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool slightly. Roll in powdered sugar. Cool completely. Roll cookies in powdered sugar again. Store in airtight container.