Netflix the Surprise Package!!

I still remember my days in California. I had loads to study and many other things to do over the week so during the weekend I used to look forward to watching DVD’s. All i had to do was to walk down to Blockbuster and pick up a DVD, but then I had to take the trouble of actually walking down there and then looking around for the DVD and then the most painful part, returning it!. Then I came across Netflix which simplified my whole DVD watching process.

Netflix is an online DVD rental service and it offers a flat rate rental by mail and online streaming in the United States. They have about 100,000 titles and are headquartered in Los Gatos, California. They started operations in the year 1997 and have come a long way since then and they currently have about 10 million subscribers today and they ship about 1.9 million DVD’s each day.

Today, with recession and many companies showing plunging profits and the many layoffs. Netflix on the other hand is making money and has experienced a major growth in the fourth quarter. Their profits are up by 45%, the company feels that this rise was due to their new streaming video feature , which allows viewers to instantly watch movies over their computer.

The news of the profits caused their stock to jump 7.4% percent to $32.38.

All i can say is that in these troubled times .. Way to go Netflix!!

Recession!!

"Recession", this word instills in me an unsettling feeling . Makes me think how many people have lost their jobs? How many people are getting laid off as I am writing this?

Recession, is nothing but a general slowdown in economic activity over a sustained period of time. It isn’t a minor headache that would just go away by popping a pill.


We all know that today almost all the big companies are announcing massive layoffs and pay cuts too. And also the current employment rate of 8.5% is at a 25 year high.

During recession, companies try their best to minimize their costs by all possible ways, before they decide to lay off their employees.

For example we will see that now Google will stop selling radio ads. Google paid $102 million to acquire dMarc Broadcasting, a radio advertising company, in 2006. If Google’s business still does not pick up, it will result in more layoffs this year.

Another saddening event is the closing of Circuit City, which has been around for almost 60 years, its sad to see that closing it would leave about 34,000 people unemployed.

But the future is not altogether bleak. I just read an article which says that the recession is abating( I cross my fingers and hope its true) and that there would be many job openings in companies like Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, Bank of America and many more.


So all we need to do, is just wait for it to be finally over and when it is , well folks its party time!!