#One person can’t give everyone their fair runtime so this has to be the effort of multiple ppl

[stuckinapril]

It’s important to go through the vetted fundraisers list regularly & see what families have little to no funds. This could be for any number of reasons, like language barriers or maybe not being familiar w Tumblr. Either way we shouldn’t expect families to know how to market themselves in order to platform. This shouldn’t rely on networking & connections. As many fundraisers as possible should get their turn in being promoted and circulated. Appealing to you first should not be a prerequisite

[diablo-that-first-spark]

What's in store for Act IV?

Welcome cupcakes! I hope everyone is having a wonderful 2024 so far. If you have gotten this far in reading, I reckon you’d like to know what is going on with the fanfic, right? This is a status update on that very topic. No, That First Spark is not dead, don’t worry! This hiatus is entirely planned, although I wish I could tell you how long it will last. Months more than likely, maybe a year? This is all very new territory for me, forgive me, cupcakes.

TL;DR version: the final act needs massive amounts of pre-planning compared to the previous parts, and I also need to weed out potential storylines I really want in there, but don’t actually have a place in there (but may end up in a spin-off). Unfortunately, I am also not that good at pre-planning stories because I am a Discovery/Gardener type of writer, and boy oh boy, going into details before setting out on the road is not our forte.

So that is why I am asking for your patience, cupcakes! TFS is not dead until I say it is dead. In the meantime I have ideas to fill in the pause: illustrations of previous chapters; concept art; idea blurb posts; general personal tactics and philosophies on writing. Ideas, may I emphasize. These would be uploaded to my DeviantArt gallery and here (and later Blogger when I build that out) – links at the end!

If this is where you stop reading (understandable), then have a lovely rest of your day and keep being awesome!

For those who are interesting in the detailed explanation, here’s the long version:

A good question to ask is: it’s just fanfiction, why don’t I just go for it, screw the planning phase? Who cares if the act is filled to the brim with stuff, we are here to have fun!

Absolutely fair point to make. We are here to have fun, and I hope my fanfic has provided that so far, if you are here reading this! Unfortunately, it is not that simple situation on my end.

For one, I actually want to be a professional writer one day (I actually have the basis of three entirely original series figured out too!) and because of that, fanfiction is not just a place for me to have fun (although I am certainly often having the time of my life here), but it is first and foremost a training ground. I want to get better at writing and so I do my best to employ professional practices in all of my works. One of those practices is the infamous “Kill your Darlings” tactic, which involves getting rid of characters, storylines, scenes, entire worldbuilding elements which you really really love and/or worked hard on… but they just don’t have a place in the story proper.

Thus, Act IV is going to go through a whole bunch of darling-culling, from the looks of it. I want too much right now and it genuinely looks like one of those terrible Hollywood blockbusters: half-a-day long runtime yet still not enough to address everything that happens in the film. They tend to piss me off and I want to avoid making the same mistake if I can help it. Just to illustrate why Act IV needs pre-planning: Act III originally had a whole arch where Tyrael, Quiet and Zayl would have traveled across the war-torn desert around Caldeum, dealing with shitty mages and the necromancers Rathma would send against them, can you believe that? Yeah, that is the kind of wild swings in plans I need to avoid in Act IV as much as possible. I probably can’t avoid them entirely, given the Discovery writing style, but they can certainly be cut back.

Will all those darlings disappear forever? Not necessarily, actually. Some will, absolutely, because they prove to be just terrible ideas on the long run. But there are some ideas, unfortunately quite vague so far, that could actually turn into a spin-off series next to TFS. It depends on a lot of factors, so I’m afraid I can’t say or promise anything concrete, cupcakes. But the dream is alive!

For two, writing TFS takes insane amounts of time and effort, and I want to give myself a chance to finish this story in the near future. Now please don’t get me wrong, cupcakes, I do not regret in the slightest that I have embarked on this journey. I wouldn’t trade the time spent writing about Lyndon, Quiet, Tyrael, Malthael, Abd and everyone else, for anything in this world. I have learnt so damn much about myself and my style, writing in general, the lore of Diablo and historical facts of the real world. I have met truly horrible and truly amazing people through this story and for almost an entire year I could maintain a regular upload schedule, these are all very valuable experiences.

But on the other hand, there is no denying the time TFS consumes. I want to eventually write other, original stories (and hopefully make a good living out of them), I want to tackle other larger projects and Anu knows what else life will throw at me on the long run outside of creative ventures. I may one day learn to juggle multiple projects at once and progress in all of them effectively, that would be great. But for now, that is unfortunately not part of my skillset.

Yeah, I know I just talked about a possible spin-off story because Anu help me, I’m always so hopeful about my creative projects and I love Diablo’s world so much. Time constraints and my own abilities are two of the many factors that would decide the fate of that idea.

And let us not forget your time is valuable as well, cupcakes! You are absolute troopers for making it this far, and I am grateful beyond words to all of you for spending your time with my work, and even more so if you even leave comments along the way! But I know you have other stories to get to, other worlds to explore and people to meet. And yes, sure, reading one chapter every month or few months isn’t that demanding. But I have always believed, even before I thought about becoming a professional, that a writer should know when to end a story. Stretching that out, endlessly adding more and more plot points, characters and stakes which exponentially increase in ridiculousness, is a certified death sentence in my eyes. (Hells, I’m already on thin ice regarding the stakes, considering the main character is basically a creator god…)

Yes, I know this is a personal opinion, some people genuinely love decade-spamming tales, and hey, more power to those people! Sail those seas for as long as you are able!

TFS is not going to be one of those stories, and I hope it will be all the better for it.

So, to summarize my goals during this hiatus:

- Nail down the basic storyline of Act IV with as few future wild swings in the plan as possible. I will be mostly employing the lessons of Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody, if anyone would like to learn as well. That book is my personal Bible, no questions.

- Kill a city state’s worth of Darlings. See if any of them can be saved into a spin-off story. No promises, only dreams.

- Build up a buffer of chapters before I start uploading. I am most afraid of this challenge if I can be honest with you, cupcakes.

- In the meantime, possible ideas to fill out the hiatus: illustrated scenes from previous chapters; concept art of characters; idea blurb posts; general personal tactics and philosophies on writing. Again, just ideas.

I have no idea how long the hiatus will last. I have a feeling I should take a bit of a break from Diablo as a whole, but I still have a 19-page fancomic to finish about the Angiris Council, good lord. It will be posted to my DeviantArt gallery for sure by the way! :D

And to here as well IF I don’t nuke that bastard and move to Blogger by the time it is finished. (There will be a post here when that happens, it will be up for a year at least, don’t worry about missing it)

Back on track…

I can’t even give you cupcakes an estimate, I have never done anything like this before. I’m flying blind but bloody Hells, bring it on! >:D If you wait out the hiatus, I love you for it. If you give up on the fic, I totally understand it and I thank you for your time up to this point!

So, thank you for reading, thank you for your patience, and hopefully we will see each other soon with the first proper chapter of Act IV! Lilith needs some proper ass-whooping, and I shall deliver, cupcakes! Take care and keep being awesome!

2024.03.07.

[littlemisssquiggles]

(Pt1) I just,,, is it bad that at this point I just feel exhausted with the Oscar bits and crumbs? Everyone is like “oh his development is coming just be patient!” But I’ve enjoyed him as a character since he first appeared and watching him get denied or overshadowed has just become exhausting

(Pt2) I feel bad because a episode like this would usually excite me!! We see the boi fight!! And he did good!!! I just kinda want to see him away from everyone else, like from jnr or rwby. Because at this point? I kinda feel like when he’s around them he’s used to help them, never the other way around, I’m just so tired

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Hello there anon-chan. Apologies for the super late response. Y’know, ironically enough your message reminds me of @ozcarpin​’s post from a few weeks back after V7CH5 dropped. They too expressed the same sentiments. As a fellow Pinehead myself whose favourite RWBY Character is Oscar Pine, I share in your exasperation of watching him be obscured by other characters when it comes to receiving his own development.

While I didn’t become a full-fledged Oscar Stan until the start of V5, I still feel you. Despite enjoying V5 in my first watch of the season, even now, it still kind of bothers me that we spent the majority of that season mostly watching Ozpin in control of Oscar’s body or taking control during moments which could’ve been used to allow the PLOT to flesh out Oscar a bit more especially when it came to integrating him into the hero team.

And of course, it still bothers me to no end how they handled his side of the story back in V6 especially during CH9. But do you know what one of the most upsetting parts about this is, anon-chan?

Even if one tries to express their frustration regarding Oscar’s writing within the series, you will always get those one or two comments that say:

“…Quit your complaining about Oscar not receiving any development. He’s not the main character!”

I was reading through some of the comments left in response to ozcarpin​’s post and I actually saw one or two folks hit them with that same remark and I couldn’t help but feel sympathetic for ozcarpin. It actually upsets me when other fans used that kind of remark to denounce criticism of Oscar’s treatment within the show. Mostly because, in my opinion, this remark misses the point trying to be made here.

Speaking for myself, this squiggle meister more or less falls into the same lane as ozcarpin. I am one of those Pineheads who hasn’t 100% been pleased with the way the show has treated Oscar and I’ve never really shied away from expressing my opinions in regards to that. However when I share my critiques of Oscar’s writing, I’m not implying that the Writers should make Oscar the main character of RWBY. That’s not what I’m saying.

I understand that Oscar is not a protagonist for RWBY. However, what I think some folks fail to miss is that Oscar is a part of the main cast or at least he’s supposed to be. When I look at Oscar, I see him in the same category as the JNR gang. In my eyes, JNPR have always been the deuteragonists of RWBY—the secondary huntsmen team of importance to complement our four main girls.

While RWBY hold the title of our four protagonists whose individual stories and team adventures help shape the core PLOT of RWBY, the narrative additionally follows the development of Jaune, Pyrhha (formerly), Ren and Nora since their stories make up the PLOT too.

As I mentioned in this post I made after watching the recent V7CH7, as a Pinehead, when I ask for the PLOT to focus more on Oscar as a character, I’m not implying that he should become the main character of RWBY. All I’m simply asking is that he should be given the same level of respect as a character as we’ve seen from others within the main cast. Because as I’ll repeat again, Oscar is a part of the main cast.

It is for this reason why I really enjoyed the recent episode so much. V7CH7, in my opinion, is the best I’ve seen this season utilize Oscar within a scene because rather than have him play background character to another character; this episode gave him some much needed attention. We actually got to hear Oscar express his thoughts and feelings in contrast with Ironwood’s and for me,it was really great.

This is what I’ve been hoping for. I just want the story to allow us as the audience to get to know Oscar more. To have him speak on screen, share his own ideologies and sentiments with other characters especially the ones he’s in alliance with. Maybe even see him use his opinions to support or challenge said characters on their views and see their reactions to it. 

We spent so many episodes debating whether or not Oscar is a character within RWBY that this episode felt like a breath of fresh air. I haven’t loved an Oscar moment this much since his Dojo scene with Ruby back in V5. 

But as much as I love the dojo-scene from V5, I can’t help but feel like that moment was more to help Ruby than Oscar. However, I still appreciate it a lot since it established a pinnacle moment in Ruby’s growing friendship with Oscar. I felt like I learnt more about Oscar as a person from that one conversation that he shared with Ruby back in Mistral than his entire runtime in V6; believe it or not. But this is just me. 

There are people in this FNDM who genuinely hate Oscar. Who believe he’s a useless boring character or not a character at all BECAUSE of the way the writing has handled him up until now.

As a Pinehead, it’s honestly frustrating when I go into forum discussions or search Oscar-related content on YouTube only to discover videos discussing how problematic of a character Oscar is BECAUSE of the glaring issues with his writing.

Because whether anyone wishes to admit this to themselves or not, the writing for Oscar Pine has not been the best or at least it hasn’t been as good as it could be. It’s been sometime-ish at best. Some might even call it subpar. Thus he’s left feeling as less of a character since the writing has done very little for him up; unfortunately.

According to some folks with the FNDM community, Oscar’s biggest flaw right now is his lack of proper development by the show which lends to him feeling like less of a character. And sadly to admit…at this point in the story, I’m starting to see their point.

Going to back to what I said earlier about Oscar falling in the same lane of  as JNPR, when it comes to the JNR trio, at least I can say that I know who Jaune, Ren and Nora are as characters. I can even say the same for Pyrhha. I know who these characters are because the PLOT actually paid attention to these characters when they needed focus and allowed me as the audience to get to know them.

But when Oscar needed attention to help flesh him out, instead it focused on other characters.

When we needed to see Oscar getting to know the team, it focused more on providing more insight into Ozpin’s character as a build up to the events of V6, I suppose. Even when Oz was removed from the story, the PLOT still didn’t shift gears and allowed us to see what was going through Oscar’s mind after what happened with Oz.

Instead, Oscar’s development happens mostly off-screen while the PLOT focused on other characters. And by the time we did get the chance to hear how he’s feeling, instead of actually showing us how Oscar felt, it’s said in a single line that makes the moment fall flat.

“…These past few days, I’ve been scared of the same things you were. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be me but I did some thinking, and I do know that I want to everything I can to help with whatever time I have left…” 

Gee…how swell it would’ve been for us to have seen Oscar going through all those emotions over the course of those few days, am I right? But I guess that his feelings weren’t all that important if all we got from that is a throwaway line of dialogue while not receiving much of a reaction from the other characters to Oscar being perfectly fine with possibly disappearing one day.

After V6 and after having more time to think about the events of the last season,I’ve gone into V7 with a slightly more cynical approach. 

In spite of what a few folks might interpret from my more negative opinions, I’m still respectable of the CRWBY Writers and appreciative of the effort they put into the ongoing story for RWBY. 

However that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to remain honest in my opinions. In regards to Oscar’s presence within the show, if the Writers do something with his character that I genuinely liked then I will praise it many times over given how much I love it. Hence my admiration for the Ironwood and Oscar scene from V7CH7.

However, if the Writers do something with Oscar that I didn’t enjoy or I didn’t personally feel was as good as I would’ve liked it to be, then of course I’m going to admit that when asked of my views (case in point: V6CH9) 

That being said, I’m not saying all of this to make it seem like I’m bashing you for your own opinions anon-chan and if I sound that way in my response then I humbly apologize.

What I’m basically saying is, as a fellow Pinehead, I hear your frustrations. On some level, I feel your frustration and exhaustion and share in it with some of my own. But in a hopefully much nicer tone that you’ve heard from others, I will say that perhaps there is a bit of truth to what others have said about waiting a little while longer for Oscar’s development. 

What I mean by that is, perhaps we should at least give the full season a fair chance. I’m not telling you to bottle up your frustrations. As a matter of fact, to quote, Shannon McCormick—the VA of the other half of our Man with Two Souls—what I’m saying is let’s try and “keep the faith” fam.

As of now, we are at V7CH7. We still have 6 more episodes to go before V7 concludes. As I said, CH7 did real good on Oscar and since promise of this season being an exciting one for Oscar is still in the air, let’s at least see where it goes from here. Perhaps things might pick up for the third act? 

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t starting to lose confidence for this season being a better Oscar-worthy one than the last until CH7 renewed some of my hope.  . With Oscar advising Ironwood to quote, “talk to the people you’re most afraid to”, I’m hoping that this was an indication that we might be revisiting the plot point with Oscar confronting Ruby again about telling James the truth. 

I’m hoping that CH7 isn’t the only episode we’ll get to hear Oscar speak his mind and it makes me interested to hear what he hopefully has to say for CH8.

So yeah, to reiterate—I know it might be a little tough fam but, let’s try and hold strain till the end of season. 

Admittedly, V7 is still pretty young and there have been elements to Oscar’s character and overall purpose in the plot of this season that have been teased a little for part of this season that I’m looking forward to seeing come to fruition:

Oscar confronting Ruby about revealing the whole truth to Ironwood (possibly with the last question from the Lamp of Knowledge)

Oscar unlocking his semblance which has been alluded to be a ‘great and powerful’ one that would possibly be the envy of his comrades, according to Ruby Rose.

Oscar receiving more clarity about the nature of the Merge from Ironwood (since he seems to know more about that).

Oscar reconciling with Ozpin within his mind and aiding in his reconciliation with the hero team.

Oscar helping Ironwood with his Baobab—possibly at some point suggesting that Atlas finds a way to get in communication with the kingdom of Vacuo to seek aid before their inevitable fall since Tyrian mentioned that’s what will be needed to thwart Salem’s plans for Atlas.

Oscar officially joining JNR and reviving their original huntsman team (possibly JNPR 2.0 or ALPN—one of those two, I dunno. My money still remains vehemently with JNPR 2.0)

Will these subplots actually be done? And if done, will it actually be good? Will it be disappointingly bad again? Or maybe it might be surprisingly better than we ever hoped for our boy? Will this be the case or not?

Don’t really know, to be honest. I couldn’t tell you even I wanted to. The best thing we can do for now fam is to wait and see what the rest of the story brings for Oscar and then make our own final judgments based on that once the story is fully complete. That’s pretty much all I can say.

I’m not sure what your thoughts on the recent episode were but for what it’s worth, I’m hoping that it might’ve renewed some of your hope for Oscar this season too? Even if it’s just a smidgen.

But let’s wait and see fam. We’ve got a cordial dinner episode with Formal Oscar coming up to look forward to. Here’s to seeing what that episode brings for us Pineheads.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

[owl-eyed-woman]

Attack on Titan Season 2 Episode 36 Analysis Part 5: An Ode to the Ensemble

AOT has always been a type of ensemble show, incorporating dozens of characters, several competing factions and so many weird sounding names that you can’t possibly remember all of them. This large and varied cast is crucial for creating a sprawling, complex world filled with countless people who, alongside our main characters, are struggling with the same, trying circumstances. At least, that’s the intended effect.

The downside of having such a large cast, however, is that you actually need to develop them or they might start to seem like extraneous titan fodder. AOT has definitely fallen into this trap before.

To be fair, fixing this issue is not as simple as just developing every single character into multi-dimensional human beings; this would just bog the story down with superfluous detail. Still, far too often, interactions with this expansive side cast have used them as cameos not characters, relying on weird quirks to differentiate rather than authentic characterisation.

Thankfully, this season has clearly recognised this shortcoming and started to shine a light on thus far overlooked and underutilised characters. We’ve moved away from Eren, Armin and Mikasa and have instead focused on the secondary characters in the cadet corps. With this shift, AOT has truly begun to excel as an ensemble piece.  

In the context of this season-wide reframing and refocusing, however, this episode is actually a bit of an outlier as it re-centres a lot of the action around Mikasa and Armin. But fear not, the side-characters have their time in the spotlight!

Obviously, a lot has happened in this season which, may I remind you, has spanned less than two days. There’s a lot to process and with barely a second to rest, everyone is undoubtedly struggling physically, mentally and emotionally. With this in mind, this episode grants our precious side characters a chance to finally address the most shocking twist of the season: Reiner and Bertholdt’s betrayal.

AOT has spent several episodes examining (and re-examining and then re-examining again) the various nuances of Eren’s emotional fallout from this betrayal, but the questions still remains: what about the other cadets? They, like Eren, trusted Bertholdt and Reiner unconditionally, counting them as comrade and companion through thick and thin. It only follows that their emotional fallout is just as cutting and devastating as Eren’s.

So as Sasha, Jean, Connie, Armin and Mikasa converge atop Reiner, surrounding the encased Bertholdt, it becomes a type of twisted family reunion, where past resentments and remembrances are dredged up and brought out into the open. How is everyone holding up?

Well, unsurprisingly, they’re confused and hurt! Who’da thunk? Each of them express this pain differently, coping in their own flawed ways. Sasha is simply in a state of disbelief. Connie, my sweet, dense boy, almost seems in a state of denial that they could have lied to them for so long whilst Jean’s snarky rejoinders hide his obvious distress.

There’s a lot these characters need to express openly in order to truly start healing and moving on from this betrayal, more than can be said in this brief conversation. Jean’s words cut to the heart of the matter as he vehemently tells them that they can’t just, literally and figuratively, run away from them and the three years of friendship they shared. It’s a desperate and raw attempt to appeal to Bertholdt and Reiner’s humanity that they now fear was only a façade.

They all desperately want to understand why this has happened and find some type of explanation for their betrayal after they’ve trusted them for so long but there is no satisfactory answer. In the end, while this brief conversation does allow for some emotional catharsis, it ultimately remains one-sided, unsatisfying and futile. Reiner and Bertholdt remain unmoved.

In the scheme of this episode, this is only one brief exchange, but it still shows us the genuine effort AOT has made this season to add depth and complexity to initially flat and simple characters. But after all this welcome effort, one character still remains obscured: Bertholdt. I’ve often joked that I only know two things about Bertholdt: 1. He is quiet and 2. He is tall. But honestly, there’s a lot of truth in this ridiculous, reductive statement. Who is Bertholdt? What motivates him? Why did he commit such horrific acts as the Colossal Titan?

Despite Eren and Mikasa’s virulent insistence to the contrary, AOT has been hinting heavily that Bertholdt and Reiner are more than just two irredeemable monsters who hate all of humanity; there’s another side to their betrayal.

We know that Reiner has struggled with his crimes, splitting his personality in twain just to cope with the guilt, but Bertholdt’s position has remained mysterious throughout this entire affair. Not even his friends’ desperate pleas are able to elicit any reaction or explanation from Bertholdt.

Interestingly, it’s Mikasa’s brutally pragmatic dismissal that gets a response out of the consistently aloof Bertholdt. Unlike the other cadets, Mikasa never seemed particularly close to Bertholdt or Reiner, and now, after what they’ve done, she couldn’t give two fucks about either of them. She doesn’t care about any purported humanity or moral nuance. In fact, she actively rejects its existence and rejects its relevance. They are her enemy now and that’s all she needs to know.

It’s this blunt dismissal that challenges Bertholdt to prove his humanity, to prove that they aren’t just monsters to be vanquished. As tears stream down his face, Bertholdt finally reaches his breaking point and reveals all. It is at once heartbreaking, humanising and horrifying.

He has no delusions about what they did, no declarations of moral righteousness, no smarmy excuses; just a soul-crushing awareness of the evil, disgusting crimes that they have committed. Like Reiner, Bertholdt has been consumed by guilt and self-hatred because of their atrocious actions; he’s just better at hiding it. He knows they deserve to die for what they’ve done.

It’s honestly a relief to have explicit confirmation that they didn’t want to kill all those people. I know AOT is a story about literal monsters, but I guess I don’t want to believe that someone could happily murder so many innocents unless they were literally inhuman. Then again, maybe that’s naïve; AOT’s central government forced its citizens into a suicide mission in order to cull the population. Such atrocities are the order of the day for human society as a whole. But I digress.

Significantly, Bertholdt also admits that he sincerely cared about his comrades during his time as a soldier in the 104th cadet corps, even if it was just a reprieve from this guilt. Their years undercover weren’t just part of the job, but rather, a brief refuge from the reality of their deeds. In the end, Reiner and Bertholdt were so good at playing make-believe soldiers because they desperately wanted to believe they were just innocent soldiers, if only for a while.

It’s a potent reminder that though Eren may dismiss them as monsters, even the most despicable people are still human beings. It’s easy to completely write off people after they do evil things or betray us but if we can’t acknowledge the humanity in our enemies, we’ll never truly comprehend our own innate potential for both cruelty and kindness.  We’re all complicated, we all contain multitudes and if AOT has taught us anything, we’re all capable of terrible things.

With that said, there’s only so much sympathy we can extend towards those actively trying to eradicate countless human lives. Yes, this distraught assertion of humanity and admission of guilt is genuinely moving, but Bertholdt and Reiner still made the choice to commit these crimes and stain their hands with innocent blood. I’ve been hard on Mikasa in my past analysis, but her to-the-point demand for Eren’s return is ultimately the correct response to the situation; any sympathy is pointless if they are still trying to destroy humanity.

This episode didn’t have to give so much runtime to these minor characters; it could have simply coasted on its action and gore and twists and turns. But still, in this single, tiny scene, AOT manages to do so much and is so much stronger for its inclusion. I truly appreciate this show’s continued effort to imbue its characters with complexity and humanity. This is why I’ve spent 5 whole posts analysing, or, if we’re being honest, rambling on about this single episode.

If you’re interested, I’ve linked to my other articles below expanding on other parts of this episode.

Links: Part 1: Why I Love this Show Part 2: Ymir and Christa Part 3: Mikasa, Co-dependency and Morality Part 4: Armin and Sacrifice

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT DEFENSE

Since it is a standard, I won't get in trouble for appearing to be writing about things I don't understand. Counterargument might prove something. When you have a spare hour, and days later you're still working on it. When you get an unexpected result like this, it could either be a bug or a new discovery. Python example, where we are in effect simulating the code that a compiler would generate to implement a lexical variable.1 And it turned out the idea was on the right track. Distraction is fatal to startups. So I want to say explicitly that I am not surprised to hear it. The big disadvantage of the new system is that it makes your life a lot simpler. The core of ITA's application is a 200,000 line Common Lisp program that searches many orders of magnitude more possibilities than their competitors, who apparently are still using mainframe-era programming techniques. If you're benevolent, people will rally around you: investors, customers, other companies, and the essay will still survive. That, it turned out to be the real experiment this summer.

But it's important to realize that more articulate name-calling and a carefully reasoned refutation, but I think it would help to put names on the intermediate stages. If you just keep trying, you'll find it.2 How much of a problem.3 One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is that they're on a different type of schedule from other people. An area without railroads or power was a rich potential market. Business people in Silicon Valley and the whole world, for that matter have speculative meetings. If you asked the pointy-haired boss had to think of another. It's the sort of determination implied by phrases like don't give up on the startup, you are in big trouble. So you can test equality by comparing a pointer, instead of comparing each character.

It would cost something to run, you become very hard to kill. We know from Google and Yahoo that grad students can start successful startups.4 I'm generating by hand the expansions of some macro that I need to write.5 Both took years to succeed. I had to write down everything I remember from it, I doubt it would amount to much more than a page.6 So the more powerful the language, the shorter the program not simply in characters, of course, but in effect I had two workdays each day, you've basically built yourself a giant tamagotchi.7 Ideas 1-5 are now widespread. If that were true, he would be right on target.8 But in addition there's sometimes a cascading effect.9

So when I say it would take ITA's imaginary competitor five years to duplicate something ITA could write in Lisp in three months, I mean five years if nothing goes wrong. There are times when this format is what a writer wants. Unless the opposing argument actually depends on such things, the only purpose of correcting them is to discredit one's opponent.10 In Robert's defense, he was skeptical about Artix. Plunging into an idea is a good thing. This essay developed out of conversations I've had with several other programmers about why Java smelled suspicious. It has too many cooks.11 It meant one could expect future high paying jobs. They have a literal representation, can be stored in variables, can be passed as arguments, and so on. Though better than attacking the author, this is how most compression algorithms work. Running code at read-time lets users reprogram Lisp's syntax; running code at compile-time is the basis of Lisp's use as an extension language in programs like Emacs; and reading at runtime enables programs to communicate using s-expressions, an idea recently reinvented as XML.

The Defense Department is encouraging developers to use Java. Sometimes merely seeing the opposing case, with little or no supporting evidence. Another way of saying that is that half of you are going to get rich and the other founders causes you to get more done than you would otherwise, because every dinner is a mini Demo Day. This is the kind of possibility that the pointy-haired boss doesn't mind if his company gets their ass kicked, so long as no one can prove it's his fault. I called business stuff. I had to write down everything I remember from it, but at every point have working code—or the style of painting where you begin with a complete but very blurry sketch done in an hour, then spend a week cranking up the resolution.12 Can you do more of that?13 Cheap Intel processors, of the same type used in desktop machines, are now more than fast enough for servers.14 If you find yourself saying a sentence that ends with but we're going to keep working on it can't be preceded by but.

That, I think is a red herring. Exactly.15 What good is it? What I mean is that Lisp was first discovered by John McCarthy in 1958, and popular programming languages are pretty much equivalent. Our case is an unusual one. By using the classic device for simulating the manager's schedule. Such labels may help writers too.16 He was hosting thousands of people's blogs. When we haven't heard from, or about, a startup for a couple months, that's a bad sign.

Most intellectual dishonesty is unintentional. We were after the C programmers. I want to say explicitly that I am not a particularly good person. The number one thing not to do is expand it. Let them write lists of n things is so relaxing. You get away with it till the underlying conditions change, and then at each point a day, a week, a month I thought I'd already put in so much time that it was the first thing we thought of. Whereas now the phrase already read seems almost ill-formed. But there were moments when he was optimistic.17 An essay can go anywhere the writer wants. The current record holder for flexibility may be Daniel Gross of Greplin.

It's even the answer to questions that seem unrelated, like how to convince investors to give you bigger abstractions—bigger bricks, as it were, so you need explicit return statements to return values: function foo n return function i return n i To be fair, Perl also retains this distinction, but deals with it in typical Perl fashion by letting you omit returns. If you move there, the peer pressure that made you work harder all summer will continue to operate.18 The most likely scenario is 1 that no government will successfully establish a startup hub, and 2 that the spread of the Industrial Revolution, despite the fact that communication is so much faster now. But when I think back to the beginning, they were in.19 The web is turning writing into a conversation. Historically, languages designed for large organizations PL/I, Pascal, Ada, Visual Basic, the IBM AS400, VRML, ISO 9000, the SET protocol, VMS, Novell Netware, and CORBA, among others. I'm not saying that you won't get a lot of external evidence that benevolence works.20 The web is turning writing into a conversation. At each point a day, a week, a month I thought I'd already put in so much time that it was the first programming language to support it. They let you do what you want and get out of the PhD program in physics at Berkeley to do this.21 I'm not kidding.

Notes

If the next stage tend to have this second self keep a journal. And I'm sure for every startup founder or investor I saw that I didn't. It doesn't happen often. Though they were supposed to be employees, or that an idea where the recipe: someone guessed that there were already lots of potential winners, which make investments rather than insufficient effort to see it in the computer world, but this could be fixed within a few old professors in Palo Alto, but historical abuses are easier for some reason insists that you were able to hire a real reason out of a liberal education than past generations have.

Stone, op.

And when a wolf appears, is rated at-1. Now to people he knew. Scribes in ancient philosophy may be common in the past, and stir.

There are many senses of the techniques for stopping spam. In practice their usefulness is greatly enhanced by other people. Actually Emerson never mentioned mousetraps specifically.

It may indeed be a predictor of low salaries as the first couple months we can't figure out what the editors will have to recognize them when you had to work like casual conversation.

There is of course it was the fall of 2008 the terms they were friendlier to developers than Apple is now very slow, but which didn't taste very good job. Do College English Departments Come From? We could have used another algorithm and everything I say is being put through an internal process in their closets. Quite often at YC I find myself asking founders Would you use the name Homer, to drive the old version, I should degenerate from Subject foo not to have lunch at the command of the founders of Google to do due diligence for VCs if the statistics they consider are useful, how could I get attacked a lot of time on schleps, and owns significant equity in it.

Users dislike their new operating system so much on luck. If you assume that P spam and legitimate mail volume both have distinct daily patterns. After Greylock booted founder Philip Greenspun out of the best hackers work on Wall Street were in 2000, because universities are where a laptop would be critical to.

If you're expected to, so you'd have to pass so slowly for them by the time 1992 the entire period from the most valuable aspects of the company.

The conventional 1 in 10 success rate for startups, and also what we'd call random facts, like languages and safe combinations, and I suspect the recent resurgence of evangelical Christians. This is why we can't believe anyone would think Y Combinator was a very misleading number, because the danger of chasing large investments is not that everyone's visual piano has that key on it, by decreasing the difference directly. 1323-82.

The CPU weighed 3150 pounds, and the valuation of your identity. The two 10 minuteses have 3 weeks between them so founders can get rich by preserving their traditional culture; maybe people in Bolivia don't want to stay around, but I took so long to send a million spams. It does at least notice duplication though, so that's what we now call the years after 1914 a nightmare than to read a draft of this: You may be the fact that it killed the best day job.

Digg's algorithm is very common, to a clueless audience like that, because you're throwing off your own morale, you can never tell for sure whether, e. Trevor Blackwell wrote the ordering system was small. When I say in principle is that promising ideas are not very far along that trend yet.

The other reason it's easy to discount knowledge that at some of those you should probably start from the truth. And eventually markets learn how to value potential dividends. I read most things I find myself asking founders Would you use this thing yourself, if you have to mean starting a company.

Some VCs will offer you an asking price. Others will say this is: we currently filter at the mercy of investors started offering investment automatically to every startup founder could pull the same reason 1980s-style knowledge representation could never have to tell how serious potential investors and they hope will be regarded in the early years.

Naive founders think Wow, a few years. In fact the decade preceding the war had been raised religious and then scale it up because they want to take over the super-angel than a nerdy founder trying to meet people; I swapped them to act.

On the other hand, a torture device so called because it was. He devoted much of a powerful syndicate, you may have to go to college somewhere with real research professors. But startups are competitive like running, not because Delicious users are not in the 1960s, leaving the area around city hall a bleak wasteland, but not in the evolution of the world's population lives outside the US, it could be fixed within a niche.

The obvious choice for your pitch to evolve as e. There are two very different types of startups that are only about 2%.

According to the erosion of the world, but he turned them down. Not linearly of course finding words this way, because companies then were more the aggregate is what you build this? Then when we say it's ipso facto right to buy stock, the initial investors' point of view: either an IPO, or a 2004 Mercedes S600 sedan 122,000 or a blog that tried to preserve their wealth by forbidding the export of gold or silver.

Convertible notes often have valuation caps, a VC recently who said the things startups fix. Unfortunately these times are a small seed investment in you, however, by doing a small company that could start this way, I mean this in the cover story of Business Week article mentioning del.

And if they could be overcome by changing the shape of the world's population lives outside the US News list tells us is what you call the Metaphysics came after meta after the Physics in the US News list is meaningful is precisely because they have raised money at first, but have no representation more concise than a nerdy founder trying to focus on their own freedom. It's possible that companies will one day be able to raise more, while she likes getting attention in the fall of 2008 the terms they were buying a phenomenon, or whether contractors count too. Yes, I mean by evolution. I see a clear plan for life in Palo Alto to have fun in college.

Patrick Collison wrote At some point, there was near zero crossover. At first literature took a painfully long time.

A investor has a similar variation in prices. 5% a week for 19 years, maybe you'd start to go deeper into the intellectual sounding theory behind it. Obviously this is to protect themselves. San Jose.

[smartwebhostingblog]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://noveltieshere.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

[awesomecolorfulcollectorwombat]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://noveltieshere.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

[lazilysillyprince]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://noveltieshere.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

[hostingnewsfeed]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://noveltieshere.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

[smartwebhostingblog]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://businesswebhostingproviders.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

[awesomecolorfulcollectorwombat]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://businesswebhostingproviders.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

[lazilysillyprince]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://businesswebhostingproviders.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

[hostingnewsfeed]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://businesswebhostingproviders.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

[smartwebhostingblog]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://webhostingtop3.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $ 9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $ 413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Tech

[awesomecolorfulcollectorwombat]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://webhostingtop3.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $ 9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $ 413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Tech

[lazilysillyprince]

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

New Post has been published on http://webhostingtop3.com/how-netflix-opened-up-pandoras-box-with-bird-box/

How Netflix Opened Up Pandora's Box With 'Bird Box'

Any investor in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) knows the standard touch-points that are frequently hit on by analysts – lack of ratings info, a perceived over-spending on shows and the company’s long-standing quest to conquer the movie industry chief among them. When any news tied to any of those areas comes out, it is like catnip to the media.

Granted that’s the point.

Netflix is one of the rare companies that can subscribe to the “any coverage is good coverage” mantra as they just enjoy being in the conversation. As analysts have seen, it thrives off of speculation and conjecture because everyone knows it won’t comment so it just creates more and more buzz around the content.

Yet in the case of Bird Box, something new happened. The company DID respond and put out actual data on viewing, but more importantly, it then ELABORATED on that data giving investors a rare glimpse behind the curtain – which ultimately just created more questions. It is infuriating.

Though, it’s also brilliant.

Netflix has again managed to reveal “just” enough to spark a new conversation but not enough to reveal anything to give their rivals any type of edge. Or did they? That’s the question investors and analysts are scrambling to make sense of and overall it’s a fascinating situation.

First, as always, some background.

Netflix’s goal to be as dominant in film as it is in television is well-documented. The problem is largely two-fold. Part of it is the film industry is well aware of how the TV industry basically sold itself out of power and the other half is the company under-estimated the power of a shared experience like going to the movies.

However, over the last few years, Netflix has doubled down on their efforts by recruiting top tier talent like The Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Will Smith, Adam Sandler and most recently Sandra Bullock.

Bullock is one of the most beloved actresses of the modern era. Not only is she talented, but she’s gone through the fire and came out unscathed. She’s as versatile as she is intelligent. The feeling with former Universal executive turned Netflix film czar Scott Stuber was that audiences would flock to her films whatever the medium.

And he was right.

According to Netflix, her latest project Bird Box (which he brought over with him) was viewed by 45,037,125 subscribers – a new record for a Netflix movie over its first seven days. The problem is that not only is that number oddly specific, it is mind-boggling. If taken on the surface, that would mean roughly 1/3 of all Netflix subscribers watched the film.

Now some people have taken this to the extreme and tried to put a dollar value to it, which is even more absurd and investors should pay it no mind. The logic is that if you take that total and multiply it by the price of a movie ticket (roughly $ 9.16), then Bird Box would have made around $ 413 million at the box office.

To give you a comparison that’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens type money.

Again, that is ludicrous and even Netflix would never be so bold to infer that (though it has come close in past instances). Not only is it nowhere near an apples-to-apples comparison, but it also furthers the narrative and Netflix knows that so it has no reason to even attempt to set the record straight.

What was so unique this time, though, was many media outlets asked for more information and instead of the usual answer of some clever way of saying “no comment,” Netflix actually commented. The company specified the number came from the number of accounts that surpassed 70% of the runtime and clarified it counted every account once (so the number didn’t include any repeat viewings).

Here’s the rub – that’s where the info stopped and from there it’s down the same rabbit hole as before. Netflix once again successfully chummed the waters and then let the feeding frenzy ensue. By answering questions, it actually opened the door to more questions which is a practice investors in the industry in this area are very familiar with by this point.

Personally, my biggest question is why 70%? Wouldn’t you try to find a number like 75% which represents 3/4 of the film or even 50/51% to show that people watched at least half the movie? 70% just seems like an odd choice and it makes me wonder how precipitous the drop-off was at 75% that they wouldn’t use it? Or was it the opposite and too high of a number to be believable? Not that 45 million is believable either, but that’s expected when talking about Netflix which makes claims that they have no intention of backing up.

And that’s also the point.

We’ve reached a new world where companies don’t have to be held to the same standards as others and it creates a Wild West of sorts. Investors can enjoy the windfall now, but they also need to just be warned this is a dangerous game Netflix is playing in the long-run. They opened Pandora’s Box and right now it is benefiting them, but it is only a matter of time until it backfires.

The problem is one of these days Netflix is going to make a claim that it can’t walk back and it may have already done that here. It basically defined what the company counts as a “view”, and while it’s not anywhere near the full secret sauce, it’s an ingredient that won’t go unnoticed. In fact, the company has already taken steps to put safeguards in place as they have told media this info applies only to Bird Box and it “should not be taken as a metric for all Netflix content.”

How does that work?

No seriously, how does that work? Does that mean it counts views at 70% of run-time for movies, but not TV series? Or does that mean it counts views at whatever percent helps its case more? Again, because there’s no checks and balance, they don’t have to answer that question. Or any follow-ups.

Yet, what is unfortunately buried in this whole thing is that if you take the numbers out of this for a second, you’ll see a movie starring a talented actress and directed by a gifted female director (Emmy-winner Susanne Bier) was able to garner this type of positive response from the public. We should just take a second to recognize that as in this day and age it is sadly a rarity. These women deserve an immense amount of credit for the work they shepherded.

To be fair, it is also a statement to the industry by Netflix that it is willing to be a change-maker in that regard – but by not releasing verifiable numbers, it doesn’t do people like Bier a lot of good when making future deals. That’s also part of the reason why Crazy Rich Asians’ writer Kevin Kwan picked a traditional studio over Netflix when selling the film rights. He wanted to have something concrete he could show the industry as proof that American audiences will see a movie headlined entirely by Asian actors – but that’s a story for another day.

For now, yes it looks like it’s Netflix’s world now and we are just living in it, but investors shouldn’t drink the Kool-Aid without realizing there’s likely more to these stories that we don’t know and more we should know that can help better the industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Feinberg may have summed it up the best:

“I’m fairly sure Bird Box is a phenomenon of some sort, but without verifiable data or comparative data for context, a Netflix-affiliated Twitter feed coming down from on-high with suspiciously specific (and yet entirely vague) data is the epitome of nonsense.”

And by the way, phenomenon is a good way to describe it as this week Netflix again took to Twitter, but this time to ask its viewers NOT to partake in what has been dubbed the Bird Box challenge. Because the Internet is the Internet, social media users decided to see which everyday tasks they could accomplish while blindfolded (as the characters are for most of the film).

Hint, it did not go well.

Regardless, the fact remains the movie hit the mark for Netflix, and numbers aside, it did exactly what it was intended to do – start a conversation.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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