YOUR HULU ACCOUNT IS ABOUT TO LOOK A LOT LIKE NETFLIX

If you want to know what the future of streaming looks like, scroll through Netflix.

More than 17 years after the former DVD mail subscription service launched its streaming platform, Netflix is still streaming’s “gold standard,” as Disney CEO Bob Iger put it. Its user interface is a major part of the reason why.

In a world full of more content than we know what to do with, Netflix has seemed to crack the code for keeping its viewers engaged by designing a digital experience that keeps them loyal, logged in, and watching. As Steve Johnson, Netflix’s vice president of design, told Fast Company earlier this year, discovery is “the thing that keeps me up at night.”

Connecting viewers with the right content and building their trust in your recommendation engine is everything, and Netflix is obsessive. Disney has been taking notes. In fact, it seems the company might’ve been peeking at Netflix’s answers.

Disney, which owns Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, plans to implement feature updates to its UI, some of which could be available in the next six months, according to The Wall Street Journal. Some of these features sound a lot like those already integrated at Netflix, like a more personalized content algorithm, and promotional art for shows that can be customized based on viewers’ habits and history to boost its “hours per subscriber.”

The business imperative for following Netflix’s UI lead is reducing churn. High cancellation rates are a major burden for streamers struggling to make money, but Netflix has it figured it out better than most. While Paramount+, Peacock, Max, and Apple TV+ have monthly churn rates of about 7%, Netflix has the lowest churn rate in the industry, at less than 4%, according to Antenna, a subscription analytics company. The monthly churn rate for Disney+ and Hulu sits between 4% and 5%, but Disney would like it to be lower.

By this point, Netflix expects to see its design copied. It’s already happened with its logo. Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters told the Verge that when his company does an update to its UI, he “can click a stopwatch and basically count the time until our competitors align on the pixel component of that version. The better competitors can do it in 18 to 24 months, and then some of the folks that take a little bit longer to get going, it can be years before they get there, but they all get there eventually.”

While Disney is hoping to redesign its streaming experience to rely on Netflix-style data-based recommendations more than human-curated content recommendations, it’s also developing its own concepts, per The Journal. That includes ideas like pop-up live channels that would air themed playlists, like, say, the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe or every episode of The Simpsons, as well as integrating recommendations across its portfolio of streamers, as in recommending the right Hulu shows to the right Disney+ viewers and vice versa.

Iger called the company’s future streaming plans “more unified” on a February earnings call, and said the company expects the changes to deliver “higher engagement, lower churn, and greater advertising potential.” It also just might end up looking and feeling a little more like Netflix.

This post originally appeared at fastcompany.com

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2024-07-19T12:37:17Z dg43tfdfdgfd