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    Netflix Is Back

    By Jason Gallagher | Yahoo! Contributor Network – Fri, Jan 27, 2012
    This story comes from the Yahoo! Contributor Network, where individuals publish their unique perspectives on some of the world’s most popular websites.
    Do you have a story to tell? Become a Yahoo! contributor

    COMMENTARY | When Fox News reported that Netflix lost almost two-thirds of its market value last year, things looked bleak for the Internet streaming giant. However, a few months can make a serious difference in the outlook of a company. The Associated Press reports that Netflix gained 600,000 subscribers, which caused the stock price of the company to soar. Netflix is back.

    While the company still probably has a way to go to win over the complete confidence of subscribers who stuck with the service and not do anything stupid like raise rates for the streaming service, Netflix has finally started to climb back to the top of the market it pretty much invented in the first place.

    However, Netflix could have some extra competition developing. The New York Post is reporting that Amazon is weighing the benefits of moving into the video streaming world with a special plan in addition to the Video On Demand service the company now offers. If Amazon could offer up a similar catalog to the Amazon Prime yearly service and come up with a price lower than Netflix, Netflix would again find itself in a fair amount of hot water.

    Still, right now it seems like a time to celebrate for Netflix, as it is in the process of recovering from what was a really dark place. Like a report from The Motley Fool suggests, investors and subscribers have pretty much forgiven a few bad decisions. While Netflix might have made a few bad decisions, the company seems to have known the score all along.

    The real question is how fast and how far Netflix can grow, and the pending original programming, as reported by AFP, could be the missing ingredient that turns Netflix into an HBO type cable channel. It would seem investors and subscribers have given the company a second chance, and Netflix apparently intends to make it count.

     

    3 comments

    • Superman
      Superman  •  Las Vegas, Nevada  •  26 days ago
      How to make millions...

      Buy lots of put contracts, then announce fee hikes & reduction of service. When stock crashes, sell put contractsand make millions. Then buy call contracts, announce change of heart and make millions when stock rebounds.
    • anony-mouse
      anony-mouse  •  25 days ago
      I am a Netflix fan. I do not need or want DVDs, just simple streaming that works.
    • Someone
      Someone  •  23 days ago
      Streaming would work if the bandwidth was as large as it is in several EU countries.

      I visited there a couple of years ago and had to limit my downloads to 3 Megabytes a second in several places so the rest of the users would not notice any delay. Home systems with 20 Megabits a second internet connections are the norm there. The slowest (cheapest) is around 3 Megabits a second.

      The USA is far behind the rest of the first world in bandwidth offerings yet they cost just as much as some in the EU with 10 times the speed.
     Post a comment
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