Netflix should be a hybrid of Facebook and Amazon.
Collect data like a social network, optimize like an eCommerce.
It takes me way too long to decide what to watch. There. I've said it, and i'm sure as hell you've said it before as well.
Thinking like a social network
Netflix, it's time you build your own version of the Facebook Like buttons. Here's why:
The Facebook like button and third party Facebook apps track users across the internet and improve their ad targeting platform.
Netflix should open itself up for third party developers and allow them to handle movie recommendations. The data collected from third party websites could be used to further improve Netflix's movie recommendation machine learning algorithm.
Giving developers even greater freedom, such as custom tags, filters and innovative interfaces opens up new possibilities for Netflix as a true entertainment operating system.
Summary: Netflix should let developers build apps on top of it's platform. In exchange Netflix could acquire even deeper knowledge about it's viewers tastes.
Thinking like an ecommerce
My key metric to optimize as a user is to find the best possible thing to watch in the shortest amount of time.
Websites like Amazon excel at this type of conversion by removing choice whenever necessary and allowing the user to quickly filter between products.
- Amazon let's me go beyond categories and gives options to filter by price, dimensions and etc. TED's iOS app did a spectacular job at building me a 21 minute playlist of jaw-dropping, funny videos. Netflix you can do this too. Sometimes I want to watch Blackmirror, sometimes it's Friends.
- Help me find an overlap that me and my significant other would enjoy watching. You know who she is, she has a separate profile on my account. As of today I have 30 rows of suggestions, each with >10 films per row. Netflix fatigue!
- Get 1–2 star movies out of the first page. Why would you recommend me something you're almost sure I won't like?
Summary: Help me get to the good stuff fast. Maximize the signal to noise ratio by using lots of data and minimizing user choices.
Hey Netflix! I'm looking for a job in Product Design, Marketing or as a PM :)
