Netflix, which for better or worse possesses a rather unique ability to entertain solitary users for hours on end, is about to get both more social and more specific.  The company has informed shareholders that it will connect with Facebook in order to develop personal Netflix accounts.

Netflix announced in a letter, "[W]e’re working on an extensive Facebook integration, which will further the notion of a personal Netflix account."  (Household accounts are the norm now, if you didn’t know.)

Then the letter to shareholders continued, "With this shift, we are starting internally to think of our available market as the number of active mobile phones in a territory, rather than the number of households, because that is the number of people who have the means to subscribe to a service like ours."

Together, all this could make Netflix much more interesting and fun for users, perhaps allowing them to get better recommendations and share thoughts with friends.

At the same time, if Netflix finds a way to get new subscribers or charge additional fees, this could help the company earn a lot more money, too.

We could be looking at a win-win situation for users and shareholders as a result.  Just don’t expect anything drastic to happen too soon, as Netflix warned, "This evolution from household to personal relationship will take several years, and there will always be some households that only have one account."