<story><title>What Hollywood Execs Privately Say About Netflix</title><url>http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-execs-privately-netflix-71957</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alanthonyc</author><text>Forgive me, but I just finished (finally) reading Clayton Christensen&apos;s &quot;The Innovator&apos;s Dilemma,&quot; so naturally, this looks like another prime example to me.&lt;p&gt;It &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; amusing to watch the entertainment execs flail around. But apparently, it&apos;s not necessarily because they are incompetent. Ironically, it may be their actual &lt;i&gt;competence&lt;/i&gt; in their current positions that prevents them from seeing the value in the long tail (or anything else made possible by new technology).&lt;p&gt;They have long made money a certain way. Now, a new method (internet streaming) is coming along. They would like to use it, but they &lt;i&gt;can&apos;t.&lt;/i&gt; They can&apos;t because it doesn&apos;t satisfy their current customers.&lt;p&gt;Netflix is happy to pay for and take the deep catalog. They are new and therefore able take the risk in creating the new market.&lt;p&gt;I can&apos;t give the theory a good showing myself in a brief comment. But if you haven&apos;t read the book yet - go do it now. It&apos;s amazing how stuff he wrote ten years ago about older companies sounds like a history lesson to me today about Microsoft, Google, et al.</text></item><item><author>steveklabnik</author><text>Are you really surprised that entertainment executives fail to understand the Long Tail, and are pretty much giving a huge advantage to Netflix?&lt;p&gt;I find the jabs incredibly amusing. Shows who exactly is in the know, and who isn&apos;t...</text></item><item><author>Umalu</author><text>The article pokes fun at Netflix for purchasing little-known, unpopular titles, as if Hollywood is somehow putting one over on Netflix. But what drew me to Netflix initially was its ultra-deep selection of DVDs, which was far better than the local video store. Seems to me Netflix is trying the same thing with streaming, building the biggest catalog as fast as possible so people will view it as the #1 streaming choice, even if Warner Brothers withholds its marquee movies and sticks it with &quot;Pushing Daisies.&quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chc</author><text>I think you&apos;re giving Netflix the short shrift here. Netflix entered the DVD rental service and beat Blockbuster — they were extraordinarily competent in that arena, arguably more so than most movie studio heads are at their jobs. Now they&apos;ve moved outside that area of competence by getting into streaming and cannibalizing their own business before any competitors sprung up to do it. They specifically overcame the dilemma you&apos;re talking about.</text></comment>
<story><title>What Hollywood Execs Privately Say About Netflix</title><url>http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-execs-privately-netflix-71957</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alanthonyc</author><text>Forgive me, but I just finished (finally) reading Clayton Christensen&apos;s &quot;The Innovator&apos;s Dilemma,&quot; so naturally, this looks like another prime example to me.&lt;p&gt;It &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; amusing to watch the entertainment execs flail around. But apparently, it&apos;s not necessarily because they are incompetent. Ironically, it may be their actual &lt;i&gt;competence&lt;/i&gt; in their current positions that prevents them from seeing the value in the long tail (or anything else made possible by new technology).&lt;p&gt;They have long made money a certain way. Now, a new method (internet streaming) is coming along. They would like to use it, but they &lt;i&gt;can&apos;t.&lt;/i&gt; They can&apos;t because it doesn&apos;t satisfy their current customers.&lt;p&gt;Netflix is happy to pay for and take the deep catalog. They are new and therefore able take the risk in creating the new market.&lt;p&gt;I can&apos;t give the theory a good showing myself in a brief comment. But if you haven&apos;t read the book yet - go do it now. It&apos;s amazing how stuff he wrote ten years ago about older companies sounds like a history lesson to me today about Microsoft, Google, et al.</text></item><item><author>steveklabnik</author><text>Are you really surprised that entertainment executives fail to understand the Long Tail, and are pretty much giving a huge advantage to Netflix?&lt;p&gt;I find the jabs incredibly amusing. Shows who exactly is in the know, and who isn&apos;t...</text></item><item><author>Umalu</author><text>The article pokes fun at Netflix for purchasing little-known, unpopular titles, as if Hollywood is somehow putting one over on Netflix. But what drew me to Netflix initially was its ultra-deep selection of DVDs, which was far better than the local video store. Seems to me Netflix is trying the same thing with streaming, building the biggest catalog as fast as possible so people will view it as the #1 streaming choice, even if Warner Brothers withholds its marquee movies and sticks it with &quot;Pushing Daisies.&quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jbange</author><text>If they can&apos;t convince their current customers that (whatever) is the way of the future, then I&apos;d argue they are NOT competent. Any fool can be a yes-man and keep doing what the previous guy did because &quot;it always worked before&quot;.</text></comment>