FeedFlix Review: Are You Getting Your Money’s Worth from Netflix?

If you’ve ever wondered if you’re getting a good value out of your online DVD rental subscription, FeedFlix might be a handy little service for you to try. FeedFlix is free, and works by aggregating RSS feeds from Netflix to compile usage statistics for you and other FeedFlix users. With it you can see in objective terms how much value you’re getting out of Netflix.

Signing up is easy. Head to FeedFlix, and enter your Netflix username and password. It’s important to note that Feedflix is not associated with Netflix; they just consume Netflix RSS feeds and obtain an authorization token directly from Netflix.

Once you do this, FeedFlix will begin analyzing your usage data. Within a few minutes, your dashboard should be filled with some interesting numbers. Check out the video walk-through below to see what this looks like, but here are some stats you’ll find:

• Average rentals per month
• Average number of days you hold movies
• Average cost per physical rental
• Average cost per total rentals (physical plus on demand)
• Rentals per week (bar chart)
• How your numbers compare to other FeedFlix users

All-in-all, it’s a very simple, focused application meant to answer one question: Is Netflix Worth It?

In my case, the answer is a resounding ‘YES!’

Check out my Netflix and Blockbuster review if you’re thinking about joining one of these services. It is the most comprehensive review available for these two services.

Both services offer free two-week trials, and both are easy (and hassle-free) to cancel, so if you’re on the fence, don’t feel bad about giving them both a test drive to see which one works best for you.

Blockbuster Total Access | Netflix

Movie rental death match: Blockbuster Online vs. Netflix

I’m a huge fan of online movie rentals. It wasn’t many years ago that finding a good selection of DVD’s at a rental store was difficult. Remember that? When the “DVD section” was just one small rack in the corner? Once DVD’s became commonly available at stores, they were commonly unavailable by demand. Netflix enters the scene with their online rental service. Never go to the video store again, never wait in the weekend lines, get your movies fast. And Netflix dominated. In 2004, they held 90 percent of the online rental business. Of course, I wasn’t ready to give up that local access to movies, so I didn’t venture into a subscription until Blockbuster Online was released, and with it came quite a few exciting features.

I was reasonably happy with Blockbuster for well over a year, but then made the move to Netflix for comparison purposes. Then back to Blockbuster when the Total Access package came out (although it wasn’t branded as that at the time). Recently I decided to give the two a head-to-head comparison in a movie rental death match. I’ve used both services when they were immature and now again when they’ve matured and responded to competition with each other. What follows is my side-by-side comparison of these rental giants.

I’ve been asked why I didn’t include smaller rental houses like DVD Empire, or specialty house like GreenCine, in my comparison. Have you ever used those services? I have. They’re awful. Netflix and Blockbuster are the only two services that offer a consistent and high-quality user experience, it’s as simple as that.

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