Escaping Flatland

Netflix has provided official reviews and recommendations online as long as I can remember. They introduced a Friend's Queue feature which showed you what your near and dear ones were watching, supposedly to make you want to see it too. Extensive research shows that people are more interested in using it to blackmail their cousin on the next family gathering about his 5 star rating on "Legally Blonde 2" and "All  About Love".

Now, Netflix customers are writing their own "Nothing-official-about-it" reviews, and sending them on Post-its to the next customer (or the sorting warehouse employee, whichever comes first). Flickr, which caters to groups of all stripes, including Dead Creature Photographers and Devil Worshippers, now has its own NotesToNetFlix group. Though I haven't seen any notes in my incoming queue yet, I've decided to share  the love and creating my own reviews.

This pointless desire to share a trite experience with a stranger - an irrelevant, irreverant message in a bottle - reminds me of another bug that bit the U.S. on December 23, 1998: wheresgeorge.com. This site tracked the "natural and geographic circulation" [see definition] of specially marked US currency bills. Anyone who naturally received a marked bill was supposed to enter a tracking report on the website. Luckily for Georgers (as they call themselves), the US government's definition of defacement of currency [Link] is much broader than its definition of torture. The George experience has given rise to fascinating sub-cultures: Yahoo groups with regular in-person gatherings [Link], memorial pages for Georgers who've passed on [Link], George bills Bingo players [Link], armchair statisticians [Link], and stamping technique afficiandos [Link].

I wonder what the future holds for NotesToNetflix-ers?