Netflix Adds Facebook Features to Its Video Service

Netflix adds Facebook features to improve loyalty to its service

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By Cliff Edwards and Eric Engleman

March 15, 2013 at 2:21 AM UTC

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This article is part of the March 18, 2013 issue of businessweek.

Whenever dinner party conversation turns to The Walking Dead, Simon Palczynski’s guard goes up. The 31-year-old San Francisco marketing strategist is playing catchup—watching past seasons of the AMC zombie drama on Netflix—and doesn’t want to risk spoilers. If Netflix has its way, Palczynski’s chatty friends will no longer have to guess which shows are safe to discuss. On March 13 the company introduced a revamped integration with Facebook, showing its 33 million online members on the Netflix home page which movies and TV episodes their Facebook friends have watched. Users can also post to Facebook individual videos they’ve loved or hated and discuss them on their timelines. “We’re taking the concept of the water cooler and bringing it into the Digital Age,” says Tom Willerer, vice president of product innovation at Netflix.