Netflix
Because Netflix needs engagement time, it makes sense that their browsing is trying to urge you to continue watching what you were previously watching. That’s a quick interaction to get users to start watching minutes. As we talked about in class, their success metric for their product goals is minutes watched, so they achieve success by minimizing minutes browsing and maximizing minutes actually watching. So they want to cut down on the time that it takes for a user to select something and get them to start watching right off the bat. They’re so focused on finding content that serves their user depending on what genres they know they like, what actors they know they like, and what types of content they generally will click on.
Youtube
YouTube is a little different in that it’s not sorted by genre, and there aren’t specific shows that you can just continue hopping right into. They do definitely push content at you based on things that you’re subscribed to and content that you’ve watched previously. That said, it’s definitely much more algorithmic. It’s more like a social media platform than Netflix. They also get more money from you watching more content. So as one video ends, they’re really good at showing you a follow-up video that they know you’ll be interested in clicking on. For example, today I watched a cooking video to make my dinner, and following that, they showed me how to bake a dessert.
Airbnb
Airbnb is also different in that they define their success metric as nights stayed in an Airbnb. So they really want to get you to book something that they know that you’ll like. They start by having you do a lot of the filtering just so that they can find things that they know you’ll like. For example:
- What dates do you need to go
- What area do you live in
- What city are you looking for
- By the beach or not by the beach
You can add all these filters so that the platform can really understand what it is you’re looking for because it varies from trip to trip so much in a way that maybe Netflix recommendations don’t vary from watch to watch.
