With so many streaming and Video On Demand (VOD) platforms vying for our attention, all with their own catalogue of movies, TV shows and short films, old and new, sometimes trying to discover new content can feel very tiring; whether you are merely browsing or attempting to try something outside of a service’s recommended and trending tabs.
Today we are looking at the approaches some third-party platforms that are using to help viewers discover new things outside of a streaming service’s content recommendations.
JustWatch
For those of us with several streaming subscriptions, it can be agonising to log into every one to see what is being recommended. It is even worse if you are looking across several platforms for something specific to watch. JustWatch essentially acts as a streamlined way for you to keep track of, browse and find what is on all the streaming services you have.
Generally, JustWatch tends to be most used when looking for a particular title. To do this you select the region of the world you are in and type the film title you are looking for into the search bar. If the film is on any streaming service in your country, JustWatch will tell you where to find it.
That said JustWatch also has more features available for those who don’t have a certain title in mind to watch. They provide charts that showcase the most popular shows and movies in a particular region. It also showcases which services have said titles.
Additionally, if users input their streaming service subscriptions they will see what content is trending on all those sites. This removes the need to trawl through every single one individually. The site also provides genre recommendations across all the services that you have access to. In addition, they also provide daily information on what has been added to a given streaming service. Plus if you interact with the movie entries on JustWatch (e.g. by liking them) it will recommend titles that fit with content you have liked from across all the streaming sites you can access.
Moveme TV
Meanwhile, Moveme is another service putting its own spin on how to find new things to watch. Like JustWatch Moveme will recommend media for you (though Moveme focuses more on films than shows) based on the services you have. However, Moveme focuses more on finding stuff for you to watch based on emotive words and emojis.
You essentially tell Moveme what you want to feel and it will then show you films from the streaming services you have that the AI algorithm feels best fits your input. You can then filter these recommendations by release year, IMDb star rating, preferred languages and genre. Allowing you to find recommendations that really fit your specific emotional requirements for the day.
Conclusion
There are of course flaws with both of these systems. JustWatch often features titles with no presence on streaming sites and can mistake projects with similar titles for one another. As well as having a generally quite cluttered interface making using the site sometimes frustrating. To say nothing of how they use user data to allow client companies to better target the audiences they want.
Additionally, Moveme’s attempt to sort films by emotional response is admirable but is open to several critiques. Firstly as these films are sorted by an algorithm which lacks nuance it can lead to some funny results. For example, searching for “feel-good movies” resulted in me being recommended films like A Cure For Wellness and Stella Dallas. Neither of which I would say count as feel-good. But beyond these mistakes, it also offers a shallow analysis of films. Feeling that films can be boiled down to one emotional response rather than the plethora of feelings experienced while watching something ultimately serves to sell something short and can lead to audiences feeling misled and disappointed.
However, the ideas behind these platforms are definitely attractive for users looking to navigate the maze of online streaming. Hopefully, these tools will continue to improve. They will certainly be needed as the industry continues to fragment.
Also Read: Streaming is Becoming More Like Cable TV
Also Read: Gone, But Not Forgotten: The Mysterious Case of Missing Streamed Content
