Renee sent me a pointer yesterday to a piece that had some astonishing numbers regarding the gowth of NetFlix friends, that I wrote about recently (and yes, I did get invited to the service by a compassionate Get Realer).

Paul Demery

Although Netflix has long posted film reviews written by customers, in November it launched a social networking system, called "Friends," that organizes reviews and other personal information related to individual subscribers, allowing other subscribers to choose movie reviews and recommendations from people with common interests, he says.

15% growth a day

"The response has been extraordinary," Hastings says. "We started with a couple hundred Friends users, and it's been growing as much as 15% per day. As subscribers start using Friends and invite others into their personal network, including some who are already Friends members and some who aren't, more people are becoming Netflix subscribers."

We should anticipate that this news will get out (I have not seen much about it, really, but then I have been sick with the flu the past few days, and not reading much), and as I have consistently stated over and over again:all ecommerce of the near future will be socialized, simply because it enriches the experience of selection.