Netflix on Wednesday announced new “play something” feature, which will allow its users to shuffle through suggested TV shows and movies.
Subscribers who will click on the button are shown a show or film that was picked on the basis of Netflix algorithm. If that doesn’t look interesting, then users can click “play something else” and they will get a new recommendation of film, show, movie or unfinished show in their watch list.
This launch of new feature will help Netflix reflect a more traditional cable experience in which as soon as users turn on the TV, there is something already playing. This feature can also help to get the viewers hooked on the exclusive content of Netflix, which can help it retain subscribers.
The button of ‘play something’ will appear under the profile name of users on the log-in screen, in the navigation menu to the left, and also on the Netflix homepage. Netflix announced to roll out this feature for TVs first and it will soon start testing this feature for mobile devices.
Netflix was testing the shuffle feature for last several months on TVs; therefore, some users are already familiar with this new button. The company’s fourth-quarter 2020 earnings release said that consumer response to new feature “play something” has been positive. At the end of the first quarter of 2021, Netflix had 208 million paid subscribers.
