Quote to Note: Netflix Is Albania

December 16, 2010

I saw this quote in my hard copy of the dear old New York Times. The reference page is Section B1 (National Edition) Business page. The article with the alleged statement is “time Warner Views Netflix As a Fading Star.”

Here’s the alleged quote, attributed to Jeffrey Bewkes, Time Warner executive:

“It’s a little bit like, is the Albanian army going to take over the world. I don’t think so.”

The mystery pronoun “it” refers to the success of Netflix, the streaming video service that recently put its goodies in the hands of Amazon’s cloud system. Yep, that’s the company whose cloud service went offline recently. The “take over the world” is ambiguous, but I interpreted the phrase to mean that Netflix (Albania) would not be able to control the real media industry.

I didn’t see a reference to Apple in the story whose online system embodied in hardware, software, and iTunes has had a reasonably significant impact on the music sector.

I really admire the metaphor. Netflix as Albania. That’s one place where I found the immigration procedure quite interesting. Lovely yard care in the smaller cities’ residential neighborhood as well.

Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2010

Freebie

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Business strategy, News, Quotation, Rich media, Technology

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.