Sunday, January 06, 2008

Can seventymm serve the long tail well?

I have been using seventymm for about a year now and I am quite happy with the service. I am a typical long tail customer; local movie rental shops typically don't stock what I like. Seventymm gives me choice of titles and choice of when-to-watch. Not having to return movies with 3 or 4 days is a big deal for me.

Unfortunately, it seems that they are exploring the idea of limited duration lending for the basic plans. I suspect this is because most of their customers are asking for the latest popular titles. So they can either stock a thousand copies of every new movie or ask customers to keep waiting till the others return their copies. Or they can say "return within 4 days". But why impose this condition on people who are renting out less in-demand titles?

Seventymm should consider grading their titles and fix lending durations accordingly. Recent/popular titles should be returned in 4 days. Other titles need not have limited duration lending. This will help customers like myself. Is anyone listening?