InstantWatcher: Streaming Titles Only

One of Netflix's great features is the ability to watch some of the titles it offers instantly - either on your computer, via your Xbox, or by using another external device, like the Roku player. Unfortunately, Netflix's entire catalog isn't available for streaming - only select titles marked "Watch Instantly." For subscribers who make heavy use of this feature, finding movies and TV shows to stream means tiresome browsing through the Netflix web site. But now there's a better way.

The InstantWatcher web site is Netflix mashup that filters for the "Watch Instantly" titles using the relatively new Netflix API which launched in September of last year. On the main page, the titles are grouped into genres like "Drama," "Sci-Fi," "Romance," "Comedy," etc. and within each section they are then further categorized for easy browsing.

Other Ways to Browse

Using the links at the top, you can browse by other methods, too. Options here include browsing "New," "Expiring," "Random," "People," "Best," and "Worst" titles. Who would want to find the worst movies? Well, we suppose it is funny to see how Netflix rounded out their 15,000+ titles in the "Instant Watch" catalog with a huge collection of D-list (and quite frankly, really terrible) films.

Of course, you don't have to just browse through the titles. If you have a particular movie or TV show in mind, you can just do a search for it using the box provided at the top of the screen.

Interacting with Your Queue

When you find a movie or TV show you like, you can click the "Play" button to add it to your Instant Queue. That feature makes InstantWatcher extremely useful, although we would like to see the ability to delete items from the queue as well. Perhaps in a later version they will add that functionality.

Despite that minor drawback, the Netflix InstantWatcher web site is still a great example of the amazing things which can be built when a company offers up an API for use by third-party developers. ProgrammableWeb dubbed it one of their "best new mashups" and we definitely agree. The InstantWatcher is a must for Netflix subscribers everywhere that streaming is offered.