Read more from Author Rachel Maga here: https://globelivemedia.com/author/rachel-maga/

Netflix has always sought a way for users to quickly find the show they want to watch without wasting time scrolling through the service. The company has announced that it will release shuffle playback, which it has been testing recently, to users around the world. Shuffle playback is a feature focused on streamlining the viewing experience, and according to the company, it was very popular in testing.

Netflix announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2020 on January 18, 2020, with more than 200 million registered users. The company also briefly explains the development of new features in it. The part that “allows users to watch the video they want to watch immediately by selecting from a few candidates without browsing the title” refers to testing this new feature. “This feature will be available to all users worldwide in the first half of 2021”, the earnings report said.

Netflix told TechCrunch that the test points to shuffle play. We reported this test in August 2020. According to the company, the name of this feature hasn’t been officially decided yet, but we’ll call it “shuffle play” for now.

In shuffle playback, a large button appears below the user profile on the home screen. When clicked, the personalization algorithm is activated to randomly preview content that users are likely to like. This includes titles that are being viewed or saved in the viewing list, as well as titles that are similar to previously viewed content.

The sidebar navigation of the Netflix app on smart TVs has a similar feature, but it turns out that the name has been changed to “shuffle play” instead of the previous “Play Something”.

As you scroll down the home screen on your TV’s Netflix app, at some point you’ll see a description of the “shuffle play” option and a red arrow pointing to “shuffle play” in the left sidebar.

Instead of starting shuffle playback suddenly, Netflix will display “If you’re wondering what to look for, click here” and explain how it works first.

2021 01 20 IMG 7821

Image Credit: TechCrunch

As mentioned earlier, the shuffle play button has already appeared and tested on some users’ Netflix apps for smart TVs.

“The user reaction to shuffle play was positive,” Netflix said in an explanation to investors. In fact, in social media posts, the rating for this feature was clearly controversial.The company has a small number of usersTweetInstead, they probably made the decision based on more reliable data on how much Netflix members actually used this feature.

Netflix also explains that shuffle playback has only been tested on TV devices and not yet on platforms such as the web and mobile. We also avoided revealing the percentage of users who have opted in to shuffle playback so far.

Shuffle playback is the latest example of Netflix’s attempt to streamline user video selection.

In 2019, Netflix tested a shuffle mode that allows you to click on a popular show to start playing a random episode. This is a nice feature if users want to randomly watch episodes of popular series such as “The Office” and “Friends,” but Netflix has the latest distribution rights for both series. I’m letting go.

Netflix has been promoting shows on login screens and screen savers. However, in response to user complaints that “preview autoplay is noisy,” we added a way to turn off preview playback in 2020.

.

Categorized in: