I’m definitely going to evoke the “I told you so” sentiment, on this topic. A few weeks ago, we had a lengthy discussion on the survival of Netflix. Friends pitched in with their ideas and I stuck to my conclusion that “Only Community can save Netflix“. Well, today I stumbled upon an article on a movie based social network called Flixster that seemed to validate that.

What’s Flixster?

Flixster is a MySpace like site that’s focused solely on Movies. At its core, Flixster has a movie rating service akin to Yahoo! Movies and Netflix; only simpler. But it’s core differentiator is the social networking aspect; one that Netflix lacks.

My take:

Creating my Flixster profile and inviting friends was simple and easy. Adding reviews will be enjoyable and creating a community of friends who similarly enjoy movies will be awesome!

How well is Flixster doing?

i. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, a self-professed movie buff, quotes ComScore data to predict healthy growth trends emerging:

They show Flixster growing from 4 million to 31 million monthly page views from March – December 2006. In that same period, unique visitors grew from 328,000 per month to just over 1 million.

ii. Alex Iskold of Read/Write Web, analyzes some of Flixster’s core features (movie profiles), its similarity to MySpace, its uniqueness, growth potential and the rise of the niche social network. Definitely worth a read.

If only Netflix had thought of this before? So, what do you think?

Is it too late for Netflix to incorporate community features or is it a totally different ballgame altogether?