What Lessons Can Other Streamers Learn from Max’s Content Discovery Improvements?
Max has reduced the time users spend trying to decide what to watch, using a Top 10 list and personalizing rows of content tiles on every user profile.
There is one problem that the streaming industry as a collective has been unable to resolve. It’s not the thorny path to profitability that each streaming service is trying to walk these days; rather, it’s the problem of offering a user interface that gets good marks from customers. Users have poor marks for essentially every streaming service's interface, particularly when it comes to helping them find a new show or movie to watch.
- Max says it has “significantly improved” the amount of time users spend finding something new to watch.
- The streamer has done this with improvements to its personalization features, a Top 10 row and notifications when a recommended show becomes available.
- With the average streaming customer spending more than 10 minutes trying to find something to stream, Max’s success has crucial lessons for other streamers.
How Has Max Improved Content Discovery?
Max may not win any customer awards for its user interface as of yet, but it clearly recognizes that there are problems it can help solve in that regard. For example, the streamer has expanded the personalization of titles within a given row of content, pinpointing customer tastes and arranging the tiles to suit those tastes for each adult profile on the Homepage, Series and Movie pages.
In addition, a new feature sends notifications to the user when their viewing history indicates a new title coming to Max would suit that viewer in particular. Those recommendations can be found on the mobile version of the app, and accessed via the small bell icon in the top right corner of the screen. The streamer introduced a Top 10 list in August, showing users what fellow subscribers are devouring on a given day.
Why Do Content Discovery Improvements at Max Matter?
A survey from August suggests that there are over 2 million titles available to stream globally. The average user spends more than 10 minutes trying to find something to watch, and many decide they’d rather simply turn off the TV and do something else than continue to browse endless rows of tiles.
Streaming services need to keep users engaged to improve their perceived value. Otherwise they risk losing customers to churn, so it would behoove streamers like Disney+ and Prime Video to take especial heed of Max’s methods.
Those methods are paying off, at least according to Warner Bros. Discovery. It claims that the improvements to Max’s user interface have significantly reduced the average user’s time to first play, and that nearly 60% increase in the number of titles that drive 80% of viewing hours on the platform. Part of this gain is from the fact that Max imported a large number of titles from discovery+ this year, but it still demonstrates that users are enjoying a wider variety of content on Max, and finding that content more quickly.
Top 10 lists are proliferating around the streaming world, so Max’s success in employing one is likely to be replicated. It has clearly made an emphasis of making it easier for user to find something to watch, and while only time will tell if those improvements lead to significantly improved churn, other streaming platforms will likely try to adopt similar measures to upgrade their user experiences.
Max
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