• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, October 11, 2011

So much for Qwikster. Less than a month after detailing the DVD-only service, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings now plans to keep streaming and DVD deliveries under the one brand.

“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,” Hastings wrote in a Monday blog post. “This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.”

So, Qwikster was dead-on-arrival, and businesses are often rewarded for responding quickly to consumer feedback. As Ingrid Chung of Goldman Sachs said in a note on Monday: Netflix management deserves credit for “listening to its customers (finally) and working to fix its relationship with customers.”

Still, it’s unclear how badly the Netflix brand has been damaged. Showing their support for Netflix’s strategic reversal, traders sent shares of Netflix soaring as high as 7% by Monday afternoon.

A forgiving Chung noted: "While today’s retreat from separating the Web sites shows how little testing had gone into the launch of Qwikster, we believe that the more humbled management team will be more thoughtful going forward.”

But, it’s too early to tell whether consumers will forgive Netflix for all the confusion. Some analysts on Monday expressed skepticism about the company's ability to win back disaffected customers. Tony Wible, of Janney Montgomery Scott, told MarketWatch.com that the company was in “desperation mode.”

Critically, it doesn’t look like Netflix plans to change the pricing plan it announced this summer, which amounted to a 60% price increase for roughly half of its customer base.

"Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said Monday. “There is a difference between moving quickly -- which Netflix has done very well for years -- and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.”

Just so we’re clear, now, Hastings admits that severing ties (at least from a brand perspective) with loyal DVD-subscribers might have been “moving to fast,” but dramatically jacking up their subscriptions fees wasn’t.