Does Netflix want to be your third place?

Like all Netflix subscribers, I got an e-mail this morning about the 70th anniversary of the Wizard of Oz, inviting me to a public concert (featuring our main man Questlove, among others) and an outdoor screening of the '39 classic in NYC. For non-Netflixers/people not as elite as I am, here's the e-mail: Netflix Click to enlarge

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Does Netflix want to be your third place?

POSTED: Thursday, September 10, 2009, 5:47 PM

Filed Under: Movies

Like all Netflix subscribers, I got an e-mail this morning about the 70th anniversary of the Wizard of Oz, inviting me to a public concert (featuring our main man Questlove, among others) and an outdoor screening of the '39 classic in NYC. For non-Netflixers/people not as elite as I am, here's the e-mail:

Netflix

Click to enlarge

Furthermore, for those that can't make it to the screening, Netflix is streaming Oz all day on October 3. I've been a Netflix member for something like six-odd years and this is the first time that I've seen community building in an offsite way.

The sociologist Ray Oldenburg writes a lot of about informal social gatherings. His most famous contribution to shit-I-learned-in-college is the idea of a third place ' a spot that's not home or work that gives you a sense of self and fosters creativity. When I was in college (probably learning about Ray Oldenburg), I scraped together beer money by logging hours at Two Boots Video on Third & A in the East Village. It had look-how-quirky-we-are! decor (actually, you can see it right here) and it always smelled like the still-comforting combination of pizza and Windex. There was a select customer base that would often come in just to shoot the shit ' the hot dad who liked to talk about aliens, the tatted-up flamer who taught me how to like foreign films, Motorcycle Man who looked like he could rip your spine out through your mouth but would always rent romantic comedies for his Biker Babe girlfriend.

The video store was one of their third places. They didn't need to pay $3.50 for a new release that was already probably scratched to hell; they could have just gotten Netflix. But they wanted to talk about how awesome movies are. Even though Two Boots was cut in half after I quit to get a real job, this community ' this third place ' was the reason the little video store that could survived Blockbuster, the superior Kim's Video on Saint Mark's and OnDemand cable.

Netflix has always lacked this third place idea. You can make friends, see their picks and see recommendations, but it's one of the few parts of the site that's confusing to navigate and not user-friendly. But with an event like this, Netflix is trying to cover that niche, giving movie lovers ' both casual and geektastic ' a place to meet and talk is an interesting community-building step. Surely inspired by Tweet-ups Meet Ups, I think this is a diabolically genius idea from Netflix's marketing team that branches this third place with their somewhat intangible product in a way that they can't do otherwise. I wonder what Oldenburg would think. It doesn't fit his description to a T, but with traditional third places ' video stores, record stores, etc. ' struggling or closing due to the advent of the Internet, these events are like the next evolutionary step.

Would I go? Probably not. But I may talk about it with my video store clerk later.

Posted by Molly Eichel @ 5:47 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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