Would “Streaming” Services Like Netflix Be Better If They Were More Like TV? Is TV Streaming?

Over at Wired, Kyle Vanhemert
argues that Netflix would do well to think about how to also
present its streaming video content in Web 2.0 streams like
Facebook, Twitter, or:

You know what else is a stream? Live TV! It comes with
the very same qualities that exist in and enliven all the examples
above. It’s immediate. It’s constant. It’s always-on, always-there,
always-new. You don’t have to do a damn thing except show up.

While synonymous with the age of streaming video, Netflix is less
like a stream and more like a colossal vending machine. It offers a
plentitude of carefully wrapped choices, each requiring careful
consideration. Infinite choice is exhausting. Ask anyone who’s
spent 30 minutes trying to pick a movie, only to give up and see
what’s on TV.

I can relate, as can anyone who finds trouble committing to a
two hour long movie and then watches five episodes of an hour-long
TV show instead. Vanhemert suggests Netflix try something between
organizing its “second-tier” content into channel-like streams or
just a “Pandora-mode” of actually-streaming video. He offers that
Netflix may be prevented from doing this by its licensing
restrictions as a reason about why the obvious-when-you-hear-it
idea hasn’t been tried yet.

Netflix is a step in the direction toward a more individualized
television experience, part of the brave new libertarian world of
digital content. Were Netflix to develop channels of their own,
it’s not hard to imagine you’d be able to personalize those too. It
really is hard to say
you’re not better off than you were ten years ago.

Related on Netflix as television network:
how it’s making TV shows like one.