Netflix and sharing

We mentioned today in our Mercury News piece that Microsoft’s new blogging service has a whiff of the “social discovery” concept in it, meaning users can post music lists and other content to their web sites that they want others to discover. This idea has been plumbed heavily lately by a raft of companies. Now Netflix has jumped into the game. Hacking Netflix (via Tony Gentile) informs us that Netflix introduced a “friends lists” feature today that allow users to see which movies their friends have watched. A social filter for movie recommendations. Because Netflix is a subscription-based service, the discovery process is only open to other Netflix “friends,” not the public. But the idea is the same. Instead of trying to explain more, we’ll refer you to the Hacking Netflix site, where the screen shots provide a good peek at how the service works.

UPDATE: Tony Gentile has posted a more detailed review here.