Video Rental Maps Developed by The New York Times and Netflix

The Video rental map developed by The New York Times and Netflix graphically displays movie popularity across neighborhoods from major U.S. cities. How would Netflix use this information to improve its business? Could other companies also take advantage of these data? How? Provide some examples.

Video rental map is a targeted database of movies that identifies movies according to specific neighborhoods. When movies are identified, they are displayed to other residents in the same neighborhoods as on site advertisements so that they can also watch the movies because they might have discussed them with other people who are living in the same neighborhood who watched these movies. This is a really intelligent map system that populates itself according to the web surfing behavior of online movie watchers. For Netflix, it means they can act more according to the likes and dislikes of a specific neighborhood and maximize their productivity and profitability by an increase sale of online movies and subscriptions.

Netflix is not alone in the online movie rental business. Amazon Prime instant video, Hulu and many more are competing to it. Video rental map can also help them in the same ways as it can help Netflix.

The video rental map is a very helpful source to Netflix, because with this information Netflix knows which type of movie each city is interested in. To help Netflix’s business become more successful, they could target each city with more movies that are similar to the ones that were popular before. They could also save money and if the type of movie was not popular at all before, then they don’t have to release that movie to the region again. Other companies can also take advantage of this data because by looking at this data they can also tell the majority age range around the city. Therefore, movie theaters know which type of movies and shows are popular around the area and they will show those genres at the theaters. Also, book stores know which genre of books they should put on display in certain areas.