After announcing Qwikster and then promptly canning Qwikster, you probably thought that Netflix had finally put the idea of separating DVD-by-mail and streaming businesses to bed. Not so. According to Redditor myhandleonreddit, DVD customers are starting to be herded towards a separate subdomain, dvd.netflix.com, where reviews written by customers with streaming accounts are nowhere to be found. This coincides with — and recontextualizes — the removal of DVD rating from the Netflix iPad app. It looks like they’re pushing to split the business again, but this time without all the flashiness.

Remember back in the dark ol’ days of 2011, when Netflix was preparing to tear itself asunder and spin off their DVD rental service into a horrifically named service called Qwikster? Well, now you can have the same experience without the terrible name, as Netflix has announced that you can now sign up directly for a DVD-only plan. It’s a thing you can do.

On a post on the Netflix blog this morning, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that the recently revealed DVD-only service, Qwikster, was to be canceled before it ever launched. Less than one month ago, Netflix made the world wonder when they announced that they would be splitting their service in two, leaving the streaming service to the established Netflix branding, while creating a new brand, Qwikster, to handle the DVD-by-mail service that was once the cash cow for Netflix. The blog post is short and probably sweet for those who weren’t looking forward to either dealing with two different services, or for those who were planning on dropping their DVD-by-mail service in order to prevent dealing with two different services. The post begins rather effectively, getting right to the point, eschewing any kind of roundabout excuses:

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.

I’m a fairly recent neophyte when it comes to Netflix. As I’ve been subscribing for just under a year, I have little-to-zero investment in what was once my experience with the service as compared to what it is now. Even then, I didn’t begin seriously utilizing what I had until late March or early April; the loss of Showtime didn’t faze me as it happened before I knew what I had.

The more recent announcement that Starz would be ending their deal with Netflix in 2012 didn’t shock me either. The old media giants are still recoiling from the new ways, and often. Besides that, Starz never really had the best selection as a channel, though my love for Disney borders on obsession. Perhaps the biggest change for Netflix, prior to this week, was the introduction of separate plans for DVD-by-mail and streaming customers in July.  For those following along at home, this was where Netflix began to dip heavily in the eyes of customers. Those who had been with Netflix since the introduction of instant streaming had grown accustomed to receiving both DVD-by-mail and the instant gratification of streaming services. The announcement that they’d have to double their investment in order to receive the same benefits as before was not received well, to put it mildly. However, it makes perfect sense with the spin off and reveal of Qwikster, which will ship games as well as DVDs, as a distinct entity from Netflix.

Despite being a bit slow on the uptoketake, it seems that everybody’s favorite pot-smoking Elmo Twitter account @Qwikster, owned by Jason Castillo, has wised up to what exactly he’s been sitting on. His account, mostly dormant until now, has sprung into action with Netflix’s announcement that they intend to split their DVD by mail service into a separate company called Qwikster. Castillo is now tweeting again, talking about his newly realized fame, more tantalizing details about his everyday life, and getting all the money he wants.

With the realization that he has something Netflix wants, of course, come a series of demands you might expect out of someone who finds English to be “about boring as s#*t” and is trying to get to soccer already. After teaming up with his “maynes” @SoccerIsLifegc7, the two have passed on an alleged $1,000 dollar offer and aren’t talking til the figure hits six digits.

No doubt you’ve heard that Netflix is spliting itself down the middle into digital streaming Netflix and disc-delivery service Qwikster. You can go follow @netflix for all your Netflix news, but @qwikster, however, is a different story. You see, Qwikster is the Twitter handle of one Jason Castillo, proud fan of soccer, swearing and marijuana use. Qwikster has been registered to Castillo since April 29th and his tweets, though sparse, are all gems.

The account hasn’t seen any activity since weeks before the Qwikster announcement, but its followers jumped from around 400 last night to around 800 this morning to a cool 2,097 and growing. As if all this weren’t enough, there is one final detail that blunt-weilding Elmo would probably find hilarious; in his first tweet as Qwikster, Castillo mentions that he’s mad that he has to make a new Twitter account considering he cannot remember the credentials to the old one. He should start writing these things down, he muses. I sure hope he made note of this one.

(Thanks to @Scott_Bromley for bringing this to my attention)

In a blog post on the Netflix blog, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix will be officially splitting its streaming and DVD-by-mail services, not just in price this time, and will be renaming the DVD-by-mail service Qwikster, a name chosen because Netflix felt “it refers to quick delivery.” Aside from a name and website change, Netflix assures everyone that Qwikster is the same DVD-by-mail service we’re all familiar with, except with the addition of video game rentals (currently mentioned platforms are the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360) through the mail alongside DVDs.

The Netflix brand will focus on being solely a streaming brand, something that isn’t much of a surprise, though if Netflix continues to lose oodles of content, one may wonder exactly how the brand will fare. Enthusiasts of both services can sign up for both, though considering the brands will have separate web pages, customers should basically treat the two separate entities as exactly that, and, for example, if a customer wants to change their account information, they’d have to do it once for each website, which will also apply for movie ratings — if a customer rates a movie on Netflix, they also have to rate it on Qwikster. There won’t be a pricing change from the current streaming and DVD-by-mail combination, but there will be two separate statements on a customer’s credit card.