And zillions of edge cases start popping up: “Hey! Why can’t I use “Party” on devices other than my laptop?!” or “How do I execute “Party” using voice on an Amazon Show device?” Not All Good Ideas Benefit the Brand These five-percenters gunk up the experience and make it harder to use. “What’s this tool for? When do I use this knife?” The downside of implementing lots of features like this - lots of “five percenters” - is you create a complicated experience where the product feels like a Swiss Army Knife. Normal people don’t read Medium posts - yet! And Netflix’s goal has always been to create an easy to use experience the entire world can embrace - not just Silicon Valley freaks and LA movie buffs. If you’re reading this article, I suspect you might think Netflix Party is a great idea - you would DEFINITELY use it and, of course, this is a different time and situation with folks so isolated by COVID19. The reality is that for features like this to create a meaningful business impact, there needs to be high engagement - likely 20% of members to create a worthwhile lift via raving customers or improved retention. “Indian Matchmaking,” anyone? “Selling Sunset?” “Cake Boss?” The problem: your friends have sucky taste in movies plus, you don’t really want your friends to know about all of your guilty pleasures. “Friends” was killed in 2010 - only 5% of members engaged with the feature. Its “Friends” feature enabled Netflix members to share movie ideas with their friends.At peak, 5% of Xbox members used the feature, and it was killed in 2010. In 2008, Netflix launched a “Party” feature on Xbox.So, why hasn’t Netflix launched the feature? Here’s a summary of Netflix’s failed social efforts: (The team just renamed themselves Teleparty - it took that long for the Netflix lawyers to notice them!) According to their page on Patreon, one million Netflix members have used the Chrome extension, and there have been more than 10 million downloads from the Google Play Store. The Netflix Party Chrome extension, built by a small team of engineers unaffiliated with Netflix, provides a proof of concept. If the feature keeps one in a thousand members from leaving, it could improve the monthly cancel rate from 2.0% to 1.9%. A Netflix Party feature could enhance profits in two ways: 1) Members rave about the feature, thus attracting more new members, and 2) The feature improves retention and thus lifetime value. If you connect with your friends on Netflix, you’re less likely to quit and leave your friends behind. But the stronger hard-to-copy effect is a network effect. Netflix’s APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) make it easy to enable features like this, while other companies would struggle. Even more, letting them chat, heckle, and compare notes on the movie sounds fun. During COVID19, when we all crave connection, enabling members to watch the same TV show or movie simultaneously makes sense. On the face of it, a Netflix Party feature seems to combine all three elements: So, why won’t Netflix launch the feature?Īs a product leader, your job is to delight customers in hard-to-copy, margin-enhancing ways. There’s even a “Netflix Party” Chrome extension available in the Google Play store.
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