Neflix subscribers now have a faster way to add movies to their online queues.
CueThat, the latest creation of Columbus-based
Big Kitty Labs, allows someone who comes across a movie title while reading online content to right click over it and instantly add the movie his or her Netflix lineup.
Dan Rockwell, Big Kitty's CEO, says the service was launched three weeks ago and "took off like crazy," accumulating 1,000 users and tracking 3,000 movie adds within the first two weeks.
CueThat will work with almost any browser, Big Kitty says. A plug-in has been developed for Firefox and Chrome and CueThat offers a bookmarklet that can be dragged from CueThat's website to Safari and Internet Explorer browsers.
Rockwell explains the advantage of CueThat is "immediacy."
"It's like a remote control for the TV," Rockwell says. "What that did for the TV is it let the person sit on the couch and change channels."
At present, there is no revenue model for CueThat, Rockwell says. Netflix does not pay Big Kitty for the additional traffic to its site, and no advertising is being sold. But Rockwell says CueThat, like some of Big Kitty's other projects, is foregoing profits now for potential pay-off later.
"It's kind of technology play, people play, in the sense of 'here's some folks that are thinking in this space and where does it go next?," Rockwell explains. "We're working on two other queuing type (projects). And we also have the analytics of what's being queued so we're gathering data. I feel like any time you're gathering data and analyzing people patterns you're sitting on something that could be interesting to a third party."
Next up?
"It's a hard one to do but I think we're going to try to do it -- library books. Where you can right click a book and automatically reserve it at the library."
Source: Dan Rockwell, Big Kitty Labs
Writer: Gene Monteith