Qwikster

Amazon.com may be gearing up to start charging for the unlimited video streaming service it now includes free with Amazon Prime. Sound familiar? Of course it does -- just rewind a few months to a summer that Netflix would certainly prefer to forget.

Netflix impressed skeptical investors with better-than-expected results on Wednesday night. If you want to know why the stock rallied on the news but you don't want to get your hands dirty by scouring the report, here are your answers.

Just six months ago, consumers loved Netflix for its all-you-can-eat video services, and investors did too. These days, after a series of customer-aggravating missteps, the dot-com darling has become a dot-com dud on Wall Street. But are the analysts right to be so down on Netflix?

A host of new products launched this year. So were big successes -- like the iPhone 4S and the Boeing Dreamliner 787. Other new offerings crashed and burned spectacularly. Here's 24/7 Wall St.'s look at the biggest duds of 2011.

Netflix wants to thank you for your loyalty. The beleaguered video rental giant is offering subscribers to its DVD plans an extra disc this month. No catch, no bait and switch: Just a straight good will gesture after a year of missteps.

Shares of Netflix are down nearly 50% year to date for a variety of reasons: The loss of its popular Starz content, the price hikes, and the infamous Qwikster debacle. But online video is still a hot market. Here's a closer look at three companies that could profit from Netflix's missteps.

If Netflix's poorly received rate hike and Qwikster fiasco didn't leave you questioning CEO Reed Hastings' ability to lead the video buffet operator, Monday night's quarterly report should do the trick. But it'll take more than strategic missteps and fumbled apologies to send the CEO packing.

The Qwikster jokes are already old, and it's back to business as usual for video buffet operator Netflix -- or is it? Its stock prices are low, and there are lingering questions. But Netflix can make it right with the public again, starting with cleaning up these three big messes it recently made.

Netflix's dramatic reversal, a cash-crunched wireless carrier, a desperate handset maker, blessings from Europe for Microsoft, and Steve Jobs: The Motion Picture. This is the stuff that will dominate high-tech headlines in the coming days. Here's what to watch as the week unfolds.

Realizing that the consumer is usually right, Netflix is abandoning plans to separate its streaming business from its mail-order roots. Here's why Qwikster -- the site that would have served as the new home for customers receiving discs by mail -- was mercifully killed by the former tech darling this morning, sending shares higher.