I went to hear Roger Ebert in conversation with A.O. Scott at the New York Times TimesCenter last night. He is touring to promote his new book, [Life Itself](http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/08/i_was_born_inside_the_movie_of. html). It was an enlightening and, at times, moving discussion between the two critics, rife with bits of inside cinema humor that I love. Note that I didn’t say inside Hollywood. Ebert loathes celebrity gossip and insider chit-chat. For him, it’s just about what’s on the screen.

Ebert has been functioning without his jaw since 2006 after he underwent surgery to treat thyroid cancer. For public appearances, he types on a laptop and then hits a button to let it speak for him.¹ The result is something spectacular. Ebert has worn many hats over the years, perhaps most popularly as a TV personality. His main calling, however, is as a prolific writer. Watching Ebert speak is watching him write.

He clacks away on the keyboard, sometimes pausing to reconsider his thoughts and often mousing around to correct typos. When he hits the play, he uses his eyes and hands to accompany the words as they come out. Sometimes, he mimics what he would be doing if he had his own voice. Other times, he is clearly performing, hamming up his gestures to make sure the people in the cheap seats catch his wit. Whenever he had something to say and didn’t want A.O. Scott to move onto another topic, he would raise a hand, often to comic effect. Once he even smacked the table to keep A.O. from changing the subject. As readers of his reviews, tweets and blog posts know, Ebert hasn’t actually lost his voice; he has just repurposed it.

Perhaps the best moments of the evening occurred when Ebert put Scott in the hot seat. When Scott brought up Ebert’s vociferous campaign against 3-D, the Sun-Times critic explained that the technology is a waste (“Maybe one or two movies a year, but I’ve seen enough Pandas doing kung-fu.”) and that no critic has made a decent justification argument for it. Then, with a sharp look to his moderator, his computer asked “You’re not seriously telling me you like 3D, are you?” Scott didn’t offer a defense, but tried to convince Ebert that Wim Wenders’ forthcoming 3-D dance documentary, Pina, shows an extension of the form. “Maybe,” he answered. He also copped to liking Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams, another 3-D documentary.

Later, the two brought up the topic of streaming films. Ebert is a big advocate of streaming media as it can connect audiences to cinema faster than ever. He often recommends films to watch on Netflix and YouTube via Twitter, and he loves watching movies on his Roku box. “What do you think of the quality of streaming movies?” Ebert asked Scott. It’s an interesting question the two didn’t spend too much time boring the audience with, though Scott did explain the films he watches online run the gamut from “smeary” VHS quality to crisp HD. He also noted that it’s often unclear which version of a film you’ll be watching on streaming services, whether it will be letterbox or pan-and-scan or be dubbed instead of subtitled. They agreed that streaming standards are nowhere near the standards of DVDs, but perhaps it will get there someday.

One joke that didn’t quite get the laugh it deserved was one that Roger made after a video from his acceptance into the Directors Guild of America played. “Now that I’m in the DGA, I can sign my bad reviews Alan Smithee.” A.O. cracked up but forgot to clue the audience in (though frankly, I thought the crowd would have gotten it). An anagram for “the alias men,” Alan Smithee is a pseudonym directors traditionally use for films that they feel have been corrupted by the Hollywood system, a work they wouldn’t want to put their name on. A geeky reference, but that’s who Ebert is.

Perhaps one of Ebert’s most endearing qualities is his simple pragmatism. Unlike some other elder critics, he is incredibly supportive of younger, amateur critics coming into the fold. He loves the expanding discussion of movies. He noted that print is still his favorite medium, but that since the internet is boundless, there is plenty of room for more criticism and discussion. Instead of deriding critics like myself who set up a home online, he lauds them. “In fact,” Ebert posited, looking around the TimesCenter, “I bet there are a number of great internet critics in this room right now.”

When asked, as his last question, what he would tell an up and coming critic who wants to be the next Roger Ebert, he left the audience with a warm-hearted answer. “Don’t be the next Roger Ebert, be the first you.” It’s straightforward, eloquent, inarguable, a bit corny and easy to remember. In other words, it’s a classic piece of Ebert’s prose.

Sebastian Anthony:

With regards to privacy, because all of your web requests will go through the cloud, your surfing will effectively be fully anonymous — target websites will see Amazon’s IP addresses, not yours. If you’re worried about Amazon sniffing your data, though, you can turn off “EC2 acceleration” in the browser’s settings.

So if you want to have a fast (and I’m guessing in the case of the Kindle Fire, serviceable) browsing experience, you have to give your browsing habits over to Amazon? The plus is that then your IP address is anonymized through Amazon’s EC2.

It’s going to be interesting to see how Amazon approaches user privacy as these things roll off the presses.¹

This morning, Amazon announced a whole new lineup of Kindle e-readers as well as the new [Kindle Fire](http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Color-Multi-touch- Display-Wi-Fi/dp/B0051VVOB2), their take on a media centric tablet. One of their major innovations is the Fire’s web browser, dubbed Silk. In short, Amazon offloads page loading to their Amazon Web Services (AWS) allowing sites to appear super-fast on your Fire. Here is Amazon’s [explanation](http://amazonsilk.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/introducing-amazon- silk/).

Ben Brooks at [The Brooks Review](http://brooksreview.net/2011/09/amazon- silk/):

Amazon has just given every web developer a way to make incredible fast and targeted sites for the Kindle Fire. That’s clever. That’s a company that gets it.

Jonathan Christopher at [Monday By Noon](http://mondaybynoon.com/2011/09/28 /introducing-amazon-silk-read-another-new-browser/):

I don’t like this trend. As a front end developer, to do my job respectably, I should have appropriate versions of modern Web browsers for testing purposes. That’s all well and good on the software end, browsers are free.

The trouble comes in when you need to buy a piece of hardware for the sake of running a free piece of software.

Brooks is coming at this as a user while Christopher is looking at it as a developer, so it’s unsurprising that they’re saying the exact opposite thing. The fear is that every tablet maker will start making a custom-built browser with new standards and new problems. The fact is, however, that no one but Amazon has this kind of vertical ability. CEO Jeff Bezos put it best when [talking about AWS today](http://live.thisismynext.com/Event/Amazon_Tablet_eve nt_live_blog?Page=2), “In terms of market share, Amazon is Coke and there isn’t yet a Pepsi.” Zing.

No one but Amazon can deploy a cloud-based browser like Silk on this scale except Amazon, at least not today. Still, Jonathan does have a point. The more browsers, the more devices, the harder it becomes to program and design sites. But, to Ben’s point, if it makes for a better user experience, then who cares?

Personally, I’d be more concerned with the privacy implications of Silk. Every Kindle is linked to an Amazon account, which means it has to be linked to a Credit Card, which means your real identity is linked to your device. Now every site you visit is cached on Amazon’s drives? It better be some fast browser to make that tradeoff worth it.

I just put a red Netflix envelope in the mail for the first time in quite awhile. I couldn’t remember when I had even gotten the film in the mail, so I looked it up. March 3rd. 207 days ago. For 29 and a half weeks, the disc had been sitting in my house, unwatched.

That’s 7 billing cycles.

Up until this month, my 1 Blu-ray a month plan cost $11.99. That means that single disc cost me $83.93. Sort of.

See, I use Netflix’s Watch Instantly service quite a bit, especially for catching up on television series. I watch it on my iPad, sometimes (but rarely) on my iPhone and constantly on my television through a Boxee Box.

Quantifying the value of Watch Instantly can be a bit tricky. Netflix does retain detailed records of everything you watch, when you watched it and for how long you watched it, but some of the numbers are a bit weird. When I watched The Big Lebowski on March 6th, for example, Netflix logged that as 3 hours and 23 minutes. That’s about an hour and a half longer than the film’s actual runtime.¹ Suffice it to say, the website’s watch log is inexact, but it’s all we’ve got.

In the time I’ve had this one disc at home, I’ve watched about 60 hours of Watch Instantly. In 7 billing cycles, that’s about 8.5² hours a month. Under Netflix’s new pricing, streaming only is $7.99 per month. I’ll stick with that figure for my streaming math and the remaining $4.00 for my 1 Blu- ray. Thus, while that 1 disc gathered dust at home, I spent some $55.93 on streaming and $28.00 to rent this one movie. I spent less than a dollar ($0.94) an hour on Watch Instantly content, on average.³

Netflix as a streaming only service is a pretty great deal if you find something you want to watch. For discs it’s a different story. Under Netflix’s new rates, which will carry over to Qwikster, a single Blu-ray at a time costs $9.99 per month without streaming included. In that case, that single unwatched disc would have cost me $69.93, 25% more than watching 60 hours of streaming content over 7 months.

Of course, it’s entirely my fault for not returning the disc and having another one sent. If I had kept a disc from a video store this long, I’d have probably paid a substantial late fee⁴ so I have no real complaints about how Netflix’s disc service works. The question now, of course, is whether or not discs are worth paying for if my return habits are so lax.

Prior to this marathon rental, I had a disc for 112 days. Before that I was on the 3 Blu-ray plan and had 3 films for 69 days. I didn’t watch any of them. There are a number of contributing factors to the erosion of my disc diligence, and perhaps I’ll go over some in another post. It’s worth noting that I’m not necessarily a typical viewer. I see a great deal of films in the theater and I also go to press screenings, film festivals and get screeners sent to me. This breakdown is purely anecdotal, but I gather I’m not alone.

At $4.00 a month for Blu-rays, Netflix was the best deal around. Now? I’ve got to decide if it’s worth keeping around.

Apple:

Version 10.0.1 introduces new features that make Final Cut Pro X even more flexible, powerful, and compatible. Download the update free from the Mac App Store.

For a x.0.1 update, this actually adds a lot of good stuff. The “Media Stems Export” and role assignment actually solves a pretty big problem from previous versions of FCP. The old way of doing this is way more confusing, which is why most people just screw it up.

Stu Maschwitz on what Qwikster¹ can do to keep his business:

• Steal a great idea from GameFly (the very cool company whose lunch you’re reaching for) and let me buy the disk if I like it. Mail me the packaging and the next disk in my queue.

• Use that last point as a negotiating point with the studios. You’ll immediately become a major sales outlet for the Blu-ray disks they love so much, so force them to make the disk experience great, instead of stripped-down and buried in skip- proof ads. Vow to only carry the full, feature-laden versions of movies when available, and market this as a huge content advantage over streaming services.

Smart guy.

{% youtube 6YScoXn31Mg %}

Louisiana Republican Rep. John Fleming:

“By the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.”

I’m not upset that this bonehead said what was on his mind; I’m upset that he thinks he’s on the losing end of a “class warfare.”

Tax his pants off.

(via @gruber).

Ben Sisario for the New York Times:

This week, according to numerous media and technology executives, Facebook will unveil a media platform that will allow people to easily share their favorite music, television shows and movies, effectively making the basic profile page a primary entertainment hub.

The article focuses on music, but remember, [Reed Hastings is on Facebook’s board](http://www.candlerblog.com/2011/06/30/what-a-netflix-facebook-alliance- means-for-filmmakers/). Like I’ve said before, good thing.

This week may become even more interesting for Netflix than it already is.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”.

More on this soon.

The day has come. Netflix, the company whose iconic red mailer sleeves upended the home video business over the last decade, is getting out of the disc delivery business. In an honest and transparent message to customers today, CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings expressed regret over his handling of the company’s recent restructuring¹ and announced that the disc-by-mail service will soon be spun off into a separate product known as Qwikster. Netflix proper will be a streaming only company.

It’s interesting to look at the timeline of how this transpired:

1. July 12: Netflix announces pricing changes and restructuring in a blog post. The post was written VP of Marketing Jessie Becker, Netflix’s VP of Marketing.
2. September 1: New prices go into effect.
3. September 15: Netflix’s stock drops 15% with news that the company will lose roughly 1 million subscribers over the price hike, more than anticipated.
4. September 19: CEO Reed Hastings apologizes for his silence during the pricing transition and announces Qwikster.

Make no mistake, this was the plan back on July 12 when the changes were announced:

Reflecting our confidence that DVDs by mail is a long-term business for us, we are also establishing a separate and distinct management team solely focused on DVDs by mail, led by Andy Rendich, our Chief Service and Operations Officer and an 11 year veteran of Netflix.

It’s clear from the timing of these events that this plan had already been prepared. Instead of stepping backwards and changing the pricing structure again, Hastings pushed the company forward, drastically. Netflix doesn’t want consumers to associate its name with plastic discs anymore. The original announcement said as much, but consumers didn’t understand the message. Now they do.

I don’t know much about the internals of the company, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Hastings wanted to spin their disc-by-mail service off all long. Perhaps that’s why he was relatively hands off as the September 1 transition loomed; “Plan A” was a compromise, but the Qwikster plan was always what was going to work.

As to what this means for home video, I think that both Netflix and Qwikster have an uphill struggle from here on out, the latter especially. For one, anyone who was on the fence about keeping a disc-plus-streaming plan now has added obstacles to overcome. Billing, film ratings and queue management will have to be handled completely separately for both services. I let my one Blu- ray plan lapse into the new pricing and I suspect many Netflix subscribers did as well. Having to set up and manage an entirely new service gives me pause. Why not set up camp elsewhere?

As for Netflix’s streaming only? It is bogged down by a number of issues today. The barrier to entry is still high. In order to get streaming video on your television, you need both a broadband connection and a set top box (Roku, AppleTV, Blu-ray player, game console , etc.) or Netflix compatible television. Even assuming one has the equipment to play streaming video, customers still have to pay their Internet Service Provider on a monthly basis. On the disc side of things, the player is simply a one-time purchase.

Netflix’s biggest hurdle for streaming has always been the content deals it can broke in Hollywood. In today’s blog post, Hastings alluded to “substantial” new content deals that will be announced in the coming months. The elephant in the room is Starz, who announced that it will pull its content from Netflix in February when their current contract lapses. Starz represents about 8% of Netflix’s current streaming slate.² As studios get their own feet wet in the streaming game³ they have grown lukewarm to the idea of licensing to Netflix. Today, Netflix’s Watch Instantly selection is not comprehensive enough to make it the only choice for a lover of media. We’ll have to wait and see what content deals Hastings is teasing.

For now, I’m going to stick with Netflix and I’ll see about Qwikster once it goes live. Consumers certainly have a right to be frustrated. It’s very rare you’ll see a company make a move this risky after news that they are losing customers in droves. This is certainly the biggest shift in the company’s history. We’ll see how it turns out.