The latest from TechCrunch
- Netflix Won't Announce Its 3 Billionth DVD Shipment: "Focus Is Really On Streaming"
- Social Music App SoundTracking Passes 250K Downloads
| Netflix Won't Announce Its 3 Billionth DVD Shipment: "Focus Is Really On Streaming" | Top |
| Netflix just announced its first quarter 2011 earnings and they’re cause for optimism, with earnings at $1.11 a share on revenue of about $719 million, out-performing analysts expectations of $1.08 per share on $704 million in revenue. The company doubled its profits, at $60.2 million versus $32.3 million at the same time last year. The company is hedging its future on its streaming subscription services, and called its DVD business a “fading differentiator” in its shareholder letter. “DVD was a Booster Rocket, but is not a Differentiator. We believe that DVD will be a fading differentiator given the explosive growth of streaming, and that in order to prosper in streaming we must concentrate on having the best possible streaming service. As a result, we are beginning to treat them separately in many ways. Already, if you look at our signup page for non-members, it is all about streaming. Having said this, DVD rental is still a great business for us, and we are working on solutions to make sure DVD continues to be a profitable business for us in the years ahead, but it is not core to winning in streaming at this point .” This attitude was further evidenced during today’s earnings call when Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was asked about DVD shipment milestones, which the company traditionally announces on its blog. The company announced it’s 1 billionth shipment (a copy of Babel ) in February of 2007 and it’s 2 billionth shipment ( Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) in April of 2009. When asked whether the company would be announcing its 3 billionth DVD shipped (which should be sometime soon judging by the shipment pace), Hasting replied that there would be no such announcement moving forward, “Focus is really on streaming at this point, don’t think that we would make those kind of announcements,” he said. In growing its streaming business, Netflix faces competition from Amazon Prime Hulu Plus and the streaming service Dish Network is about to launch. Its competitive strategy is basically grow as fast as it can and put all its eggs in the streaming basket, if you can glean anything from today’s announcement. Netflix currently offers a pure streaming plan as well as a hybrid DVD/streaming option. No word on whether they’ll start announcing the streaming milestones. Image: John Muk CrunchBase Information Netflix Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Social Music App SoundTracking Passes 250K Downloads | Top |
| Launched at SXSW , social music app SoundTracking has announced its quarter of a million milestone today, surpassing 250K downloads in just six weeks after launch on the iPhone. With 100K downloads taking place in the app’s first two weeks of existence, SoundTracking is experiencing rapid growth for an iOS app without without a previous app or website to drive installs from. Another music sharing app, Play by AOL , has also hit 250,000 downloads in half the time on Android. While founder Steve Jang wouldn’t disclose numbers of daily active users or users, he does tell me that over 50% of SoundTracking users are using the app to share their music moments on both Facebook and Twitter, which might explain the increased signups. It seems like every five minutes or so someone else is following the SoundTrack to my life. The latest app update now allows people to search by user name and search for venues as well as ID and share songs that they’re listening to, and Jang tells me that he’s starting to see music and location interests graphs form on the site, “People are starting to use SoundTracking as a way to share music taste and experiences from the real-world with their social graphs. Just like photos have been important in the social space so has music. Music is something naturally that people get excited about, sort of like a universal language.” SoundTracking is a part of Schematic Labs, which creates “ entertainment apps for the real world.” Jang plans on creating more apps based on communities around tastes and is sniffing around the fashion/shopping space next. CrunchBase Information SoundTracking Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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