Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Media Entertainment

Netflix Test Puts a 'Shuffle Play' Button Right on Your Home Screen (techcrunch.com) 38

Posted by msmash from the for-what-it-is-worth dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Don't know what you're in the mood to watch? Netflix's new "Shuffle" feature could help. The company confirms it's currently testing a feature that puts a big button labeled "Shuffle Play" right on the Netflix home screen, beneath your user profile icon. When pressed, Netflix will randomly play content it thinks you'll like. This could be a movie or show you're currently watching, something you've saved to your list or a title that's similar to something you've already watched, the company says. The new button is currently showing up on the Netflix app for TV devices, much to many users' surprise. Some users thought the addition could be fun or useful, while others just seem confused.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Netflix Test Puts a 'Shuffle Play' Button Right on Your Home Screen More

Netflix Test Puts a 'Shuffle Play' Button Right on Your Home Screen

Comments Filter:

  • Really? (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday August 20, 2020 @08:10AM (#60421999)

    "This could be a movie or show you're currently watching,..."

    We usually call that 'spoilers'.

  • Just no (Score:3)

    by RichMan ( 8097 ) on Thursday August 20, 2020 @08:19AM (#60422035)

    Based on the usual list of suggestions Netflix offers me this will be a total failure.

    The matching algorithm seems to miss the most important quality of any show the writing. It does action/drama/whatever, foreign/domestic, live/anime and all those other parameters but the matching algorithm does not seem to care one bit about the quality of the writing for the show.

    • I saw this feature show up last night in my Netflix screen and I was very excited. I have long thought that this is a feature that was missing from streaming services in order to bring parity to traditional broadcast TV.

      There are times when I just want the idiot box to entertain me instead of seeking out something based on an image or description.

      Anyway, I tried it, and it appeared to pick things based on their recommendation engine, which, after years of honing, is actually pretty good.

      My overall impressio

    • The problem is who knows what their algorithm is really optimizing for? It could try to maximize your viewing enjoyment, or it could be pushing netflix-produced content, or minimize Netflix licensing fees, or push exclusively-licensed content to make switching away harder... who knows? Probably a mixture of all the above.

      • My problem is there is no content on Netflix I want to watch. I'm just about to cancel again, after signing up a couple of months ago (again). All I ended up watching was a couple of series of Red Dwarf (again), which I could have watched on Kodi anyway.

        I so want to find Netflix useful, but its just dire. I think I give it the benefit of the doubt now and again because it used to be good, back when I could VPN in and change country.

        Maybe I'm just old and I've seen it all.

  • A Shuffle Button (Score:5, Funny)

    by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Thursday August 20, 2020 @08:39AM (#60422107)
    A shuffle button that, when pressed, will play at random an interesting Netflix-made show. Tried it, nothing happened.

    • None of these?

      BoJack Horseman
      Stranger Things
      Haunting of Hill House
      Dark
      Orange is the New Black

      • Dark reminded me of one of those Family Guy episodes where Stewie uses his time machine so extensively that he encounters multiple versions of himself and disrupts multiple timelines. Except it wasn't nearly as entertaining. Though I did find it hilarious to find that one character needed to entirely cover all the walls (and the ceiling!) of a room with diagrams in order to keep track of what the hell was happening.
      • Appart from 'Haunting of Hill House' (not a horror fan), and 'BoJack Horseman' (not a fan of animation), 'Orange is the New Black' (not for me, but it's probably well made) I've seen at least a few episodes of each.
        Stranger things: like most Netflix shows [most of the other shows, you selected the best], starts well, kind of interesting, but after a few episodes something is not going well. Either it's too repetitive, they lengthen the takes (does Netflix pay by the minute). For instance, In S1E1, when the

  • News for nerds... (Score:3)

    by sTERNKERN ( 1290626 ) on Thursday August 20, 2020 @08:44AM (#60422117)
    ...stuff that MATTERS. Get your shit together Slashdot.

  • Why? (Score:4, Informative)

    by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Thursday August 20, 2020 @09:23AM (#60422239)

    I can't imagine being so bored, stoned, drunk, stupid, whatever, that I'd push a shuffle play button on Netflix. They have some watchable content, but their suggested content is always complete dumpster-fire level garbage. Who's going to trust that button? All it will do is weight your watching habits to be more what they want you to watch, not what you want to watch.

  • People don't watch TV because it's great entertainment. They watch because they're bored. Shuffle should be perfect for that.

  • A better feature would be to list the language of movies in the description.

    I don't know how many times i've found an interesting movie only to find that it was in another language that I don't understand.

    Sure they are subtitled, but if I wanted to read i'd pick up a book - not the remote control.

  • Really? I need them to now randomly stuff their old garbage, dirty socks, and recycling down my throat?

    All I want from them is a button that says "Don't ever suggest this piece of crap to me again." They keep suggesting I watch the same junk, no matter how many times I reject it. Eventually, there is so much chaff, I can't find any wheat.

  • If you don't know what to watch on TV (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ThurstonMoore ( 605470 ) on Thursday August 20, 2020 @10:39AM (#60422461)

    Then don't watch TV.

  • But not what I want to watch right now!

    And sometimes they get it horribly wrong. Keep suggesting things to me and maybe I'll watch them. I could see this working for something like YouTube where a lot of videos are only a couple of minutes long, but 3-seasons of 10 episodes each?

    Sorry, I'm still finishing up Ozark (and it's a sad testament to that series that I'm posting on /. rather than watching the rest of it right now).

    And reviewing their choices of "Because you watched Ozark"....I see some things I'v

    • They need to focus more on user-controllable sorting, finding and navigation and quit with all the engagement games which mostly seem to be about making their catalog bigger than it is. And it's still small enough that there's a ton of outright filler, low-budget, just-graduated-from-UCLA-film-school dreck that I feel only exists because some Netflix exec's kid made it and got Netflix to buy it. Like some of this stuff wouldn't exist on the direct to VHS market because its so bad nobody would front the $1

  • An ariticle about how this is implemented, or which kind of servers are being used might be cool, but some random cool new feature on a web site that has nothing specifically to do with tech I don't even use is really not compelling.

  • A shuffle button. The innovation is breathtaking.
  • Used to take me 5 minutes to find something to watch. Now that things are rating-reviewless I sometimes watch the first 5 minutes of five different shows only to get bored and give up. Amy Shumer's rubber body stocking comedy special was incredibly unfunny and had 1 star. Wokeflix's shuffle is a 21st century version of channel surfing...

  • Large portions of the population shuffle when they walk either because they're too lazy to lift their feet or they're wearing slippers, why not have the same, lazy function on a tv screen?

  • About 7 years ago I grabbed a copy of PS3Media server. It was horrible and these days won't compile due to support subsystems no longer available. But I cleaned up the code quite a bit and added a TV Schedule XML file so that I could set up my own TV Schedule. So, now on Monday Nights I'll play from 7PM to 8PM 2 episodes of Babylon 5, followed by Last of the Summer Wine. Each viewing continuing from the previously played episodes, so that if I miss a day or time I don't miss an episode. I find this much
    • Addendum: It was HORRIBLE regarding the code. It had mass duplicated functionality and required massive clean up and refactoring.

      • But at least you have good taste in Science Fiction!

        Though I have to ask how you watch 110 minutes of content in one hour?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by wed128 ( 722152 )

          It also seems to be a lot of work to watch two tv episodes a night, why not just put them on when you sit down?

  • Cuties is the latest. [indiewire.com]

    I've never had a Netflix account personally, but when I found out about Dancing Queen teaching little boys to cross-dress and twerk I talked my wife into canceling the account she had before we were married.

    This article which has been syndicated in many places [newspunch.com] touches on the greater overall problem.

    If you care about human trafficking and child abuse at all:
    CANCEL YOUR NETFLIX

  • Netflix showed their hand when they did away with the relatively accurate 5-star rating system and moved to the thumbs up/down system. It's clear they don't want to show you content you'll actually be interested in because that would force them to obtain non-crappy content. This is just one step closer to doing away with a ratings system altogether because it's cheaper to shove garbage down our throats than to actually produce/acquire watchable programming.

  • One has to wonder why NetFlix can add new mis-features before fixing existing horrid mis-features like their "autoroll" crap that starts playing stuff when you open the menu to look and see the language instead of waiting for the user to select "play".

    • They probably discovered that removing user agency in deciding when content actually plays, increases the likelihood of the user watching that selection by %5 or so, and therefore that is good modern design because users are more engaged with the content.

      That it is incredibly irritating to %95 of users, who probably also hate unskippable ads on dvds for the same reason, probably was never taken into consideration.

Slashdot Top Deals

Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the pens will multiply instead of disappear.

Close