 In case you missed it, last week, Netflix announced what has been billed as a “long awaited” integration with Facebook that allows people’s friends to see what they’re watching. It’s dubbed Netflix Social, and while my immediate reaction was one of dread (more on this in a minute), it apparently has lots of control for its users.
The dread:
It’s Beacon all over again. Remember when Facebook ruined Christmas? I thought it was just like that, except this time, it would be exposing embarrassing guilty pleasure movies and TV episodes.
For example, my wife and I share our Netflix account, so my immediate reaction was concern over the idea of what might show up on my Facebook account. I had visions of a timeline update to the effect of “Mike has watched the first 3 seasons of Ghost Whisperer.”
Who cares if it’s true or not...none of my friends are going to believe it wasn’t me.
But, as Inquisitr points out, sharing won’t automatically happen.
Even so, I find myself feeling awfully curmudgeonly about this new feature, and I’m not alone.
Maybe the idea of creating a social viewing experience is the next step in content. While it seems like social readers haven’t really caught on in the way publishers anticipated, perhaps this really is the next big thing.
But I can’t be the only one who saw that a friend read an article on the Washington Post and then, rather than sharing my info with the paper, went to the paper’s website and searched for the article.
Sometimes, you just want to sit back and throw on whatever happens to be in your Netflix queue. And that’s OK.
Now and then, it’s ok to be antisocial.
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