Netflix today announced its Q4 2020 earnings, but amid the actual figures on offer, the company briefly mentions a new feature that has been worked on. The working title for this is Shuffle Play, and it will help you decide what you are looking for, by showing the content that the algorithms think you will like. Netflix says this feature will be fully introduced to all users by the first half of this year.
The company has experimented with a random episode before, but it’s slightly different. In the words of Netflix, this feature gives ‘members the opportunity to choose to instantly watch a title chosen just for them versus to browse.’ In other words, the company has determined that people are so indecisive to watch that it is better to choose Netflix yourself based on factors such as what you have watched and what is in your watch list.
Image courtesy of TechCrunch.
Shuffle Play has noticed that it was already tested in August 2020, and it will probably look a lot like the photo you see above. It is currently limited and only on TV devices. According to Netflix, feedback so far has been pretty positive.
As for the other news from the earnings report, Netflix is doing pretty well, with 8.5 new paying subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2020 and 37 million new subscribers for the full year 2020. It sounds like the timing of this feature release on ‘ a great time, with more indecisive viewers than ever before.
