2011《财富》最愚蠢商业事件大盘点（上）

Netflix涨价+拆分的双重悲剧

    如果客户对你钟爱有加，而且公司的股票也在持续飙升。这时你会怎么做？还是让网络视频租赁公司Netflix来告诉你答案吧。2011年，公司涨价60%，推出了一个名为Qwikster的新网站业务，这两项举措让网站的订阅用户怒火中烧。

    公司在7月份公布了Qwikster网站的构想，听起来是出于合理的长远考虑：Qwikster网站将主要面向DVD业务，而Netflix将主要负责流媒体业务，因为那才是未来的前景所在。但对于客户而言，这意味着他们需要处理两个账户，两笔信用卡收费，而且还得访问两个网站。

    市场的强烈对抗很快爆发。超过100万名用户注消了他们的会员资格；而在近几个月，网飞公司的股价已经下跌了约75%。因此，Qwikster公布仅仅一个月后，公司便放弃了这一想法。公司CEO里德•黑斯廷斯在近期的一次大会上公开承认：“这次行动不够聪明，我们位次进行了严厉的自我批评。这本身就是画蛇添足。”但他同时又表示：“不过，三、五年之后，我们可能会淡忘这件事情。到那时候，我们更关心的可能会是我们的流媒体业务是否取得了成功。”

    只怕到时候，这家公司又有的忙了。——JP曼加林丹

Netflix's double oops: Pricing, Qwikster

    Your customers love you and your stock is flying high. What do you do? If you're Netflix in 2011, you tick off subscribers with a 60% price hike and the launch of a new business called Qwikster.

    The idea of Qwikster, announced in July, was grounded in sound long-term thinking: It would be for the DVD business, while Netflix would be all about streaming, and that's where the future is. But for customers, it meant potentially dealing with two accounts, two credit card charges, and two Web sites.

    The backlash was swift. More than 1 million users canceled their memberships, and Netflix shares have dropped by nearly 75% in recent months. Just one month after announcing Qwikster, Netflix abandoned the idea.

    "We berate ourselves tremendously for that lack of insight because it didn't need to be that way," CEO Reed Hastings admitted recently at a conference. "But you know, in three or five years, we aren't going to remember it. It's going to be, `Did we succeed at streaming?'"

    Until then, the company will have its work cut out for it. -- JP Mangalindan