Netflix’s new previews option in their mobile device app bears a strong resemblance to Snapchat and Instagram Stories.
The previews, which were only recently implemented, are available on the home screen of the app above all of the content threads. They’re arraigned into small circles and when you tap on one the preview opens up.
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Once you are done a preview, you can swipe over to see another one, which is very much like how Snapchat and the Instagram Stories fucntion.
“One of the best ways to know if you’ll like a new series or movie is to watch a quick trailer,” Cameron Johnson, Netflix’s director of product innovation, said when announcing the new feature, as reported by Variety. “With the launch of mobile previews, we are bringing a video browse experience to your mobile phone in a fun and mobile-optimized way.”
Hopefully the mobile previews will have a positive response from users, as Netflix has had some very mixed receptions in the press lately. One of the more glaring situations was when their CEO Reed Hastings came under fire over his stance on “inclusion riders.”
“We’re not so big on doing everything through agreements,” Hastings said in a press meeting. “We’re trying to do things creatively.” USA Today reports that Hastings prefers his staff to work directly with the filmmakers to make sure that productions are all-inclusive and diverse. “That’s how we look at it,” he added.
Explaining more in-depth what it is, Roseanne co-showrunner Whitney Cummings previously tweeted, “An inclusion rider is something actors put into their contracts to ensure gender and racial equality in hiring on movies sets. We should support this for a billion reasons, but if you can’t find a reason to, here’s one: it will make movies better.”
Many were frustrated with Hastings attitude toward inclusion riders, seeming to perceive his comments as flippant, with one person tweeting, “Dont make me cancel you.”
@reedhastings you might want to reconsider inclusion riders. Leaving it up to creative bros to be fair is how we got here.
— Black Lash (@BlacklashAZ) March 7, 2018
“Say it ain’t so Netflix… you all need to get in front of this this is going to look really really bad… diversity don’t hurt it helps,” another wrote.”
“Coming from a company with those percentages of mostly white men in positions of power I can understand why [Reed Hastings] said what he did,” someone else quipped.
Taking an opportunity to challenge Hastings on his approach to diversity, one Twitter user responded, “There are a load of reasons why informal discussions could be ineffective in changing the diversity of casting. [Reed Hastings] – if you don’t think inclusion riders are the right answer, you need to come up with something better and *put it in writing*.”
