Perhaps it was karmic push-back from the Internet. On Thursday, Netflix’s web site went offline, one day after a new report indicated the movie service accounts for more than 20 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic during peak times.
A spokesperson for the company said the outage began late morning, local time, for the Los Gatos, Calif.-based company. No reason was indicated, but the company did say it was an internal technical problem.
‘Primarily a Streaming Company’
Netflix, originally begun as DVD-by-mail service, has increasingly become a leading source of streaming movies and other content. The outage meant the streaming service was interrupted, and its nearly 17 million subscribers couldn’t order DVDs online. DVDs previously ordered were shipped as scheduled.
The company said earlier this week that it has been experiencing huge growth, with a subscription base that grew 52 percent in the third quarter compared to the same quarter last year. It was the fourth consecutive quarter with more than one million net subscriber additions, and the company said the growth was “clearly driven by the strength of our streaming offering.” Compared to the second quarter, the growth rate was a robust 13 percent, and revenue for the third quarter stood at more than $553 million.
“In fact,” said Netflix cofounder and CEO Reed Hastings, “we are now primarily a streaming company that also offers DVDs by mail.”
The increasing number of people who are watching “instant” streaming movie and TV content gives a clue why the Internet is becoming Netflix. The company said the percentage of subscribers who watched a streaming TV show or a movie in the just-completed third quarter was 66 percent, compared to 41 percent for the same period last year. This was a five percent increase over the previous quarter.
In Canada, 95 Percent
In fact, by the fourth…