COLUMN: Netflix split, name-change boggling
“Qwikster” is a stupid name.
That is the name Netflix chose for its DVD-by-mail rental service, which is being set up as a separate company from its online streaming service, which will maintain the original name.
Netflix CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings detailed the change in a blog post on Sunday night.
The announcement the two services would be separated, and would each cost the $7.99 it originally cost for both services, is a couple of months old. The news here is the name change.
First and foremost, the name is just not good. “Qwikster” sounds like either a failed 1999 dot-com startup or the AOL Instant Messenger name of a kid who really loves NesQuik.
Taking the service on which you built your company and brand and taking the original name off of it kind of feels like they are planning for the DVD-by-mail service to fail.
As more and more of the film industry moves online, physical media as a whole seems to be on the chopping block. It may take a few years, but Netflix is far from the only company planning for that eventuality. Internet-ready televisions are one of the first precursors to the fall of physical movie media.
However, making it so obvious that they put very little thought into the name change is not good PR for the company.
If you need proof of the hasty decision, take a look at Twitter.com/Qwikster. The Twitter account belongs to one Jason Castillo, whose near-incomprehensible tweets are mostly concerned with smoking weed and eating tacos.
Sure, Netflix/Qwikster will probably buy the account from Castillo for a considerable sum that will probably almost immediately be transferred over to his dealer. But not dealing with this before announcing the name to the public is a massive lack of forethought on the part of Hastings and his cohorts.
If this does not result in a massive failure and a quick dissolution of Qwikster as a company, it will not be because of the name change, but because the company is also now offering video game rentals by mail through Qwikster as well. In the next couple of years, though, either Qwikster or Gamefly, whose entire business is games by mail, will close their doors.
No matter whether this turns out to be a good business decision or a bad one, this still remains true: “Netflix” makes me think of movies via the Internet, whereas “Qwikster” just really makes me want chocolate milk.
