Netflix plans for Qwikster go awry on Twitter

ON-DEMAND VIDEO SERVICE Netflix has run into a little trouble in its plans to change its name to Qwikster, the fact that someone is already using that name and might be unlikely to hand it over.

A Qwikster web site is online, but it is only a holding web page. There we learn that the service from Netflix is coming soon. However, visiting a Qwikster Twitter page, which already has a rather decent number of followers, tells a different story.

This Qwikster, a Jason Castillo, is hungry and rather far removed from Netflix. "About to go eat cuz I haven't ate all day wonder wat iLl make lls ima make tacos lls#thumbsup," he writes.

Unfortunately for Netflix the Qwikster brand is supposed to clear up confusion about the company's business and will see it breaking off its DVD rental, as opposed to video streaming, business into a separate entity.

"Streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently," wrote Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix in a blog post this weekend.

"It's hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to 'Qwikster'".

Unfortunately it was just after this announcement that Castillo breathed new life, or smoke, into his Twitter account. It was probably around then that his follower numbers shot up to over ten thousand too.

According to the BBC Castillo will hold onto the Twitter account handle until he can "make bank", a term that we can only assume refers to his earning some money from the sale of the account, something that is against Twitter's terms and conditions but is definitely not beyond the realms of possibility. µ