Introduction:
Plex, the media software startup and streaming service is expanding its offerings beyond home media organization and free content streaming by introducing more social networking features. “Discover Together,” a Plex Becomes a Social Network with Public Debut find and connect with friends, and discover new TV shows and films. Although this tool was tried in experimental form last summer, it has since been refined and made available to a more extensive user base on Plex.
The company aims to transition Plex from a content streaming hub into a vibrant community. Users can add friends to their Discover Together network, enabling them to explore friends’ saved content for future viewing, see what movies or TV series they watch, and view their ratings and reviews of content.
Plex plans to leverage these user-generated recommendations to enhance its content recommendations and facilitate discussions among streamers about their favorite content. This move positions Plex to compete with existing online TV and movie communities such as TV Time, which combines content tracking with active discussions, and Letterboxd, which caters to movie enthusiasts.
Plex’s Discover feature is accessible through the program’s main navigation and comprises four tabs. It displays popular content on Plex and streaming services based on user settings, offering a comprehensive view of trending trailers, genre-specific content, and popular items across all platforms.
Users can personalize their profiles on Plex’s social networking site via the Profile tab, adding a bio, profile photo, location, and more. Friends can access their watch history, watchlist, and content ratings with customizable privacy settings for different content categories. Privacy options can be applied selectively, hiding specific activities if desired.
Upon launch this week, users’ statistics will be private by default until they complete the onboarding process. The History section on each page allows users to decide what to watch based on their friends’ viewing and reviews. Users can also see additional comments from friends on content they’ve published.
Plex Becomes a Social Network with Public Debut:
Plex Becomes a Social Network with Public Debut [Source of Image: Techcrunch.com]
The People tab allows users to expand their social network by searching for new friends by name, location, or interests. Mutual acquaintances can be checked through friend lists, and friend recommendations can be viewed based on network and privacy settings.
Plex’s equivalent of a News Feed is the Activity tab, where users can follow their friends’ activities on the social networking site, including watchlist updates, marked content as viewed, and comments on TV shows or movies. Comment visibility on Plex apps for Apple TV and Roku is expected to be enabled shortly, and users can mute friends whose viewing habits don’t align with their own.
As users interact with Plex’s app, friend activity data will help Plex suggest popular shows among friends each week. In addition to these social features, Plex is enhancing other aspects of its software, allowing users of personal media to report issues with titles, language, or subtitles, and the server owner will receive an email notification.
The launch of these features follows a challenging quarter for Plex, where they had to lay off 20% of their employees from the free, ad-supported streaming service due to an advertising slowdown. Despite this setback, Plex aims to grow by 30% in 2023. Plex’s Discover Together feature is now available on their website, mobile app , TV apps, streaming video players, gaming consoles, and more.
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