A couple weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that Netflix had an application for the iPhone. As an added bonus, I did a quick search to see if Hulu had an app and, lo and behold, they did.
So what does all this mean? Funny enough, there’s an existing commercial that does an excellent job of articulating the impact of this new found discovery (it just isn’t for either of these products). Unfortunately, despite numerous Google searches, I’ve yet to find the darn thing. Absent a link, here’s a quick summary:
A lady is watching tv on a bench with weird people all around her in a generic setting.
The lady gets up and the generic setting has faded into a subway setting (weird people are still around her)
The lady gets off the subway and is on her merry way to wherever she was headed – it turns out that the was watching tv on her hand-held device.
*Please, if you have a link to the spot, send it my way and I’ll embed the video.
This may not seem like much, but if you’re a father of a four year old that loves Thomas the Tank Engine, you’ve just stumbled onto mana from heaven. Netflix’s entire stable of “watch instantly” programming is right at your fingertips, and amongst that stable are about fifteen different movies that will satiate any child’s Thomas craving. On the road and forgot to pack the toys? No problem, simply select a movie and your grumpy toddler settles into la, la land.
No kids, no problem. Just last night I was scrolling through the Hulu selection to see what I could dial up (now there’s some parlance from the past) and I found one of those shows that I loved in my youth – The Fall Guy. We’re not talking high art here, but by clicking a couple buttons I was able to listen to one of the best theme songs of all time. Who cares about the plot line when things are getting blown up, right?
While I’m not a die-hard television viewer and I don’t advocate staring at a 2″ x 4″ screen 24/7, what’s not to like about carrying around your very own television studio in your back pocket?