I've been a Netflix subscriber for 25 years, and I can't decide if Clips is the best or worst thing to happen to the mobile app | Tech Radar
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I've been a Netflix subscriber for 25 years, and I can't decide if Clips is the best or worst thing to happen to the mobile app
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Control and sharing is marginal but there may be another play here
Netflix Clips is a curious thing. It appeared on the streaming service's mobile app on Monday and produces what might be the platform's first-ever vertically scrolling content feed. I just don't know why it exists.
Strike that. I do know, but perhaps don't fully understand. Clips is yet another way for Netflix to introduce easily distracted subscribers to fresh content. You see, Netflix's business is only partly creating and delivering pre-packaged and live content to its customers. The other part is supporting its annual estimated $20 billion content creation expenditure. And you do that by holding on to subscribers, and possibly upselling them to higher subscription tiers where they can, for instance, do away with ads.
But Clips, which shows up as a boxed "play" icon right next to Home in the Netflix mobile app, might be about something more, too.
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As I mentioned, if you have the Netflix mobile app, the new feature should just appear as part of Netflix's relatively spare mobile experience. On my i Phone 17 Pro Max, I discovered it right after logging into my account.
While the Netflix app home screen features options like "Shows," "Movies," "Podcasts," and "Categories" at the top, there are only four menu options at the bottom: "Home," "Clips," the new AI-infused "Search," and "My Netflix," where you find and switch accounts.
Like most vertically scrolling video apps, Clips is an experience that focuses on portrait-mode video. However, instead of user-generated clips of people dancing, lip-syncing, restoring old furniture, or dumping AI slop, every single video is a Netflix content clip. My feed, such as it is, was an eclectic mix of shows and movies I've seen before (and some I have not). In my first viewing, I got two-minute clips from Frankenstein, One Piece, Animal, Something About Mary, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Too Hot to Handle, The Diplomats, The Sea Beast, and more.
Each clip includes the title, sub-categories, like "Bollywood," Rousing," "Revenge", and a brief description. There are no comments or even likes. There's also no rhyme or reason to the mix that I can discern, but they are often choice moments or behind-the-scenes segments. The One Piece clip, for instance, was a video of the castmates reacting to a scene, and Frankenstein was of the Director Guillermo del Toro talking about Mia Goth's performance, which was interspersed with bits from the movie.
Clips lacks most controls you might find on a proper social media video platform. I frustratingly couldn't pause, reverse, or fast-forward any of the videos. A tap of the screen only mutes the clip (captions appear automatically). There is a big plus sign so you can add any of the content to your Lists, and then the show appears on your List in Netflix's account section.
You can share the clip, but it doesn't do what you think it does. Instead of sharing the vertical video, it basically shares an ad for the show on your preferred social media.
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Of course, you can also select the circular image of the content to go directly to the main Netflix play window.
Overall, it's a pretty underwhelming experience, except for the fact that vertically scrolling through these clips is a little addictive. It's like video popcorn or Pringles chips ("Can't eat just one."). You're snacking on the best bits of some of these shows and getting that 2-minute worth of feels. There's no commitment, and the videos are basically spoiler-free, but they still somehow connect you with the content. It can be hard to stop flicking and watching
I could imagine that, at some level, Clips is a trial balloon for pure-play vertical video content.
Remember Quibi, the vertical video content destination that was clearly ahead of its time? Launching a video streaming service, especially one that flew in the face of content consumption norms at the time, was risky and ill-fated. Now, though, vertical video series are all the rage on Tik Tok.
Surely Netflix, which has a massive subscriber base of at least 325M, sees some opportunity in vertical video content. The telemetry it collects from this Clips feature might be enough to tell it if it could start creating bespoke 2-minute-long dramatic content to hook mobile users in a whole new way — and stop Tik Tok creators from encroaching on its market space.
That might not happen. Netflix could just keep feeding 2-minute video bits into Clips in the hopes that they hook subscribers on yet another bingeable series or movie, but that does seem shortsighted to me. This toe hold in the vertical space is too valuable to let go.
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A 38-year industry veteran and award-winning journalist, Lance has covered technology since PCs were the size of suitcases and “on line” meant “waiting.” He’s a former Lifewire Editor-in-Chief, Mashable Editor-in-Chief, and, before that, Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for Ziff Davis, Inc. He also wrote a popular, weekly tech column for Medium called The Upgrade.
Lance Ulanoff makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Live with Kelly and Mark, the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, and the BBC.
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