Netflix Hits Back Against Facebook, Has a 'House of Cards' Up Its Sleeve

Last week, Facebook announced that it had teamed up with Warner Bros. to start offering digital video rentals (and eventually purchases) through streaming content.

Netflix stocks immediately plunged as experts predicted that the social media giant would take a large chunk of Netflix's market share.

But Netflix isn't out of the fight yet. The red envelope pushers announced they are in the process of acquiring the upcoming TV drama "House of Cards" starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher ("The Social Network").

That means that the show will be exclusive to Netflix Instant Watch, as if the streaming media service were its own TV network. It's an unprecedented move, and actually a pretty brilliant one: just when companies like Facebook, Hulu and Amazon were starting to catch up to Netflix (by copying what Netflix does), they took things up to the next level: original content.

Adding to the bold move is the fact that the show, which has the Oscar-nominated director of big movies like "The Social Network" and "Fight Club" and a two-time Oscar winner in Spacey, is almost guaranteed to be a hit (or at least to be a critical success).

In this way, it looks like Netflix hopes to take the HBO route: yes, people have to pay an extra monthly fee for service, but the content is just too darned good to pass up.