| Kindle Price: | $9.89 |
| includes VAT* | |
| Sold by: | Penguin Group (USA) LLC Price set by seller. |
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America's Eyeballs Kindle Edition
| Price | New from | Used from |
- Kindle
$8.99 Read with Our Free App - Hardcover
$20.7524 Used from $4.00 3 New from $45.69 - Paperback
$15.8353 Used from $2.34 22 New from $5.97
Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPortfolio
- Publication dateOctober 11, 2012
- File size901 KB
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
Review
—JIM COOK, CFO of Mozilla; Netflix founding team member
“A well-crafted, well-researched, and well-sourced page-turner. Keating is no stranger to this subject, having covered Netflix for years as a reporter, and gives readers a fascinating and insightful look into the inner workings of a company that forever changed how America watches movies.”
—LORI STREIFLER, executive editor, City News Service Inc.
“Even if all you know about Netflix is that it has bright red mailers and comes out of your Roku box, Keating’s reporting will make you want to sit down and learn more. It’s a tale of corporate intrigue, gigantic success, and enormous failure.”
—ALLAN PARACHINI, adjunct professor, California State University; former Los Angeles Times reporter
“Netflixed has all the drama and intrigue of a Hollywood blockbuster, but for me, it was also nostalgic. Gina Keating perfectly captured the pressure, energy, and emotion we all felt as we fought Netflix for control of America’s living rooms. I’m often asked by people, ‘What happened at Blockbuster?’ Now I can tell them . . . just read Netflixed.”
—BEN COOPER, EVP, Camelot Strategic Marketing & Media; former head of marketing, Blockbuster Online
“…Veteran media journalist Keating’s nonfiction debut is a surprisingly swift-paced mix of investigative journalism and thrillerlike suspense. The major players in the game—Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Blockbuster’s John Antioco—are both complicated characters, and Keating does a commendable job painting a portrait of these very different business leaders, each with his own unique approach to vying for the same brass ring: domination of the American home-entertainment market …An impressive look at the infinite complexities and cutthroat competition driving the deceptively simple business of 21st-century movie delivery.
—Kirkus Reviews
“There's a grim reality behind the magical wafting of DVDs to our mailboxes, according to this lively, canny business potboiler…[This] colorful narrative climaxes with Netflix and archrival Blockbuster throttling each other in an old-fashioned price war that Netflix wins by a hair. Keating hypes the allegedly world-shaking technological transformations in how we access digital content, but what's far more interesting and dramatic is her smart portrait of how an ever-changing capitalism stays very much the same.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Keating separates fact from legend in this story of how the tiny upstart, Netflix, took on and ultimately decimated the goliaths of the industry, Blockbuster Video and Hollywood Video… It seems that only Apple Computer rivals Netflix in how its customers hold a deep personal attachment to the brand “experience,” and fans of the service will get a lot of insight into how much risk, dedication, and commitment it took to bring that experience into being.”
—DAVID SIEGFRIED, Booklist
--This text refers to the paperback edition.About the Author
--This text refers to the paperback edition.
From Booklist
Product details
- ASIN : B007X5ZE4W
- Publisher : Portfolio (October 11, 2012)
- Publication date : October 11, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 901 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 316 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #640,590 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #116 in Media & Communications Industry (Kindle Store)
- #133 in Internet Culture
- #332 in Company Histories
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
The story begins as Randolph and Hastings are carpooling into Silicon Valley deciding that they want to "be the Amazon of something". They recognized that DVDs would displace VHS tapes and Hastings mails one to himself (actually, he mailed a CD, DVDs were hard to find at the time) and found it to be playable. But they still weren't sure about the business model (a-la-cart rentals, sales?). The true genius behind Netflix was how they used the market place as a test lab, trying different combinations in different locations, dissecting the customer data, before settling on the monthly subscription/online queue. The other genius was the recommendation engine, something that the internet allowed them to implement. They discovered that happy customers didn't necessarily have to see the latest release (which were more expensive) and tweaked the online recommendations for this purpose.
But the part of the book I found the most intriguing was the war with Blockbuster, and in particular the role that Carl Icahn, the activist investor played. Carl bought a 10% stake in Blockbuster and got himself elected to the board, and eventually forced out current CEO Antioco (who recognized the Netflix threat) and put in Keyes (whose lack of understanding of technology was epic!). Keyes never grasped the technological innovation that would allow movie renters to not physically enter a store. But more so, he was famously immutable to the cries of others who were aware. At one point he enthused that customers would one day load their movie rentals onto thumb drives!! A Keyes quote taken from the book: "imagine in the future the ability to have the entire library captured on a kiosk!". He virtually killed Antioco's Blockbusters Online initiative (which by Netflix's own assessment was "checkmate" with its return/pickup-at-stores feature), and diverted the money instead into additional merchandising for the stores under the belief that he could loss-leader the movie rental and make up the profits with high margin items like big gulps and pizzas! (An interesting side note was that when Antioco and his team were forced out, they all sold their Blockbuster shares and bought Netflix stock, so certain were they that Keyes would fail.) Carl's myopic pursuit of short term profits drove customers into the arms of Netflix and the rest is history.
I was disappointed that the story ended with the price hike/Quikster fiasco of last summer. I wished for more insight into the streaming business than she provided, and she also only touches briefly on the international launches into Canada and Latin America/Caribbean (and now Europe). Maybe she'll write a sequel, especially now that Carl Icahn just announced that he has purchased a 10% stake in Netflix with plans to push them toward being acquired! This story may need a second edition!
This is a great David-vs-Goliath story that happened in our time, and with something so simple as different strategies for movie rental. The story provides wonderful insights into the trials and tribulations of a start-up, and the eventual survival-of-the-fittest that exemplifies the capitalist free markets!
We all collectively joke today about Blockbuster's dead meat adherence to its bricks and mortars roots while the country hurtled inexorably towards a broadband future. Keating reminds us that it almost didn't turn out that way. There was a period in time in which Blockbuster - under the stewardship of CEO John Antioco & SVP/GM Shane Evangelist (has there ever been a better name for a corporate leader?) - conceived and masterfully executed Blockbuster Online, an online/offline play which terrified Netflix executives to their bones. Keating's book is as much Antioco & Evangelist's story as it is Reed Hasting's.
For the record, it was Carl Icahn and Jim Keyes that ultimately destroyed the promise of Blockbuster Online, not Netflix. Keating makes a very compelling case on that account. Consider it death by one's own hand.
On the Netflix side, it's less Hasting's tale than it is Mark Randolph's, the founder and spiritual touchstone of Netflix. Keating's stories from early days of Netflix have the feel of a joyous, swashbuckling band of pirates. The author does tip her hat to Hastings though -- the man's combination of entrepreneurial chops, serious smarts, ability to be the secret whisperer to the financial markets and sheer will of personality are a fearsome combination in one man. This is no accidental success story.
In her Acknowledgements, Keating relates that "[t]hese executives humbled me with candid self-assessment, the likes of which I had rarely heard as a longtime journalist covering the financial, political, and legal realms. Simply being allowed to share their thoughts and emotional journey at such close range made this project highly satisfying." Her talent is that she took these oral histories and assembled them into this wonderful, rollicking narrative. I highly recommend you check it out.
Gina Keating does a good job balancing the two sides and taking the reader into both houses to understand the thought process for Blockbuster and Netflix. I enjoyed reading about Johnny Antioco from Blockbuster as he so badly wanted to implement certain ideas, but at times was misguided.
Anyone who is a fan of corporate strategy will enjoy this read as Netflix enjoyed having large amounts of cash and low overhead compared to Blockbuster with a serious cash burn and high overhead. In addition Blockbuster had franchisees not on the same page with overall strategy. Netflix also had a personal credo of "great brands had to connect with customers on a personal level". If used wisely and monitored this is where social media helps certain companies.
Good book on how to get after the more established companies and disrupt "business as usual". Anyone starting a business and challenging mature companies and markets needs to read and understand this book. Well written and an interesting read for sure.
Top reviews from other countries
I learned about what happened to Blockbuster but never understood back when it occurred
The last stage of Netflix ( the movie making) was done in large brush strokes that lacked the fascinating insights
Not a great way to end such an outstanding effort




