Netflix, Inc. is an American entertainment company whose main service is the distribution of audiovisual content through an online platform or VOD (video on demand) streaming service. Located in Los Gatos, California, the company was founded in 1997 and started with a DVD rental service through the mail a year later.
In 2000, even with DVD rental as the only service, Netflix introduced a personalized recommendation system, which was based on the rating of one to five stars that its customers made of the materials they rented through their site by Internet. The continuous improvement of this system – which in 2017 would be changed to one of “thumbs up” / “thumbs down” – as well as the use of other data that the platform obtains from its customers known as data-mining or data mining, It is considered as the main responsible for the success of the company.
In 2007, Netflix started its VOD service in the United States, exclusively for use through personal computers; As of 2008, different options are added to access the catalog via streaming: video game consoles, smart TVs, tablets, etc.
On February 25, 2007, he delivered his DVD number one billion7 and two years later his physical catalog had 100,000 titles, while his clientele exceeded 10 million subscribers.
In 2011, the company began operations for the first time outside the US and Canadian territory, offering its streaming catalog in the Latin American and Caribbean region; in 2012 it reached some countries in Europe and from 2016 to the whole world with the exception of the Crimea region, and the territories of North Korea, China and Syria.
Until July 2019, the platform had more than 151 million customers around the world, mostly outside the United States.
On January 16, 2014, the nomination of the documentary The Square for an Academy Award became the first in history for an original Netflix production