Okay, it's been quite a while since I made a comment on this ongoing battle between the two big movies-from-the-internet giants, Blockbuster and Netflix. I don't remember what I said last time, and I'm not gonna bother commenting on that anyway, since it was 3 years ago now. I digress.

I'll be honest, Blockbuster is putting a grand hurt on Netflix from my point of view. I had Netflix for a couple months back around the end of 2006, and was quickly able to see that the same problems that plagued them before are plaguing them now. Shipping time was pretty bad... I was on the 3-at-a-time plan, and 3 movies a week is what I got. Given, that's still pretty cheap compared to walking in and paying 5 bucks to rent a movie, but it felt a little light for me.

It was about that time that I heard about Blockbuster's Total Access plan. With this plan, Blockbuster has finally cashed in on the biggest advantage they have over Netflix... their stores. Now, you can take your movies back to the store and hand it to a smiling employee, and at the same time, you can trade this online movie in for an in-store movie for FREE. I'm buggin.' (You do, of course, still have to have a membership with the store, your online membership isn't good for that.) So what I basically get now is about three times the movies I got with Netflix, because I'm really working hard on watching my mailed movies and trading them in ASAP. There are now, believe it or not, actually times when a mailed movie may lay on my kitchen table for up to 2 DAYS before I get to watch it, because I have so many coming in. That's pretty much exactly where I wanted to be.

Now, before you go dumping Netflix, let me go back a second and clarify some of these details. Yes, you can trade Blockbuster movies in at the store... but it has to be a Total Access store. I'm lucky to live in a town outside Lexington that has a Total Access store, I can gorge myself on movies all I want. However, in Lexington where I work, which is a very large town, not a single Blockbuster in the whole town (that I've found, and I've looked pretty hard) is such a store. So if you're counting on feasting on movies by trading them in like I do, you'd better make sure that you have a store that does that type thing near you. (I have to think that SURELY they'll fix this problem soon... but who knows?)

Netflix does still have a few things Blockbuster doesn't too... their web site, to my estimation, is better in a few ways. Netflix makes movies available to save in your queue before they even come out at the theater, which I like. As soon as you hear about the movie, you can go to Netflix and be pretty sure they have it ready to put in as saved. Blockbuster tends to be a lot slower about this... the movies almost always have to be a month or two from DVD release before you can put them in the saved area of your queue.

Netflix also has this really cool queue split thing. Basically, if you're sharing the account with a friend or family member, you can give them their own part of your total rentals, and they get their own queue. This was really handy when I was sharing the account with a guy I work with, because we could both get the movies shipped to our workplace, and I didn't have to worry with whether or not he'd clog up the progress of getting more movies. Netflix even goes so far as to put each person's name on the address label, so you really can have your own account even if you're splitting it with someone. Blockbuster hasn't quite seen the value in this, I suppose... their best recommendation to counter this is to "make decisions as a family."

Blockbuster has really been working on their queue system in general as of late, and I think they may have actually made it easier to maintain your queue with less clicks. They have a short list of your top movies at the right of the screen, and when you add one, it just shows up in this list. Netflix pops up a screen which you have to close if you want to go back to the page you're on. This popup screen has advantages, though... there are similar recommendations on this screen that are almost always good matches for what you've chosen.

Netflix seems to have a bit more intelligence in their recommendations also. Blockbuster paints with a wider brush when they recommend things, whereas the things Netflix recommends tend to match in more than just genre. It makes it really easy to quickly fill up your queue if you know your tastes.

So, that's where they are as of January 2007. Honestly, if Blockbuster keeps the trade-in thing in place, they'll absolutely keep my business. I keep waiting to hear more about Netflix and their partnership with TiVo, so you can download stuff straight to your player, but that hasn't come about yet. For now, I'll keep driving my heiney to the store and trading in enough movies to turn my brain into gelatin.

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