Qwikster, Netflix’s New DVD Service, Not Winning Any Name Awards

UPDATE: @Qwikster responds to his new fame.

Imagine a couple – a nice couple that truly loved each other and shared a virtually drama-free relationship. We will call them Bob and Jessica. Now imagine that one day, Bob dropped a bombshell on Jessica. Perhaps, “I slept with you sister,” or something like that.

What if the Bob returned a few weeks later to apologize – not for the original transgression, but for how he handled the situation. Unfortunately, it just made Jessica more pissed off because Bob announced something new during the apology, something that just added salt to the wound.

“I’m sorry how I dealt with that whole cheating on you thing. I should’ve handled it better. Oh, and I also sold your car on Craigslist.”

This overwrought analogy sums up how many feel about Reed Hasting’s announcement yesterday that he will be splitting Netflix’s streaming and DVD services into two distinct entities.

Of course, all of this stems from Netflix’s decision to break up their streaming and DVD services in July. During his apology for how Netflix handled that controversial price change, Hastings announced the formation of “Qwikster.” Qwikster will now handle the entire DVD service, and the streaming service will operate under the Netflix name.

Naturally, there are many questions that arise from this decision. For instance, why would they change the name of the DVD service, the part that put them on the map? Why would they split the services, so that they are now disintegrated? Payment info, ratings and queues are now going to be completely separate. Of course, this all becomes less confusing if you believe that Netflix wants to rid itself of some dead weight.

But for many on the internet today, the big question is this:

“Qwikster?”

Yes, the name is an odd choice – especially considering the track record of companies that end in “ster.” Hastings says that the new name refers to “quick delivery.” Twitter seems to think differently –

And then there’s this. Man, somebody should totally do that –

It also turns out that @Qwikster already exists on Twitter. Unfortunately for Netflix, the account doesn’t belong to anybody associated with Netflix.

Nice. I’m sure that the new delivery envelopes will look great with the new Elmo-smoking-a-joint logo. That’s just what the DVD viewing crowd wants to see. For your information, @Qwikster has gained about 200 new followers in the last hour.

What do you think of the whole Qwikster thing? Let us know in the comments.