Netflix gives its users a lot of different ways to consume the streaming media it offers. However, until now a family would either have to get separate Netflix accounts or share the one account. That may all change thanks to the company’s experimental personalized profiles feature. This will allow a family of four people to use the same single streaming account easily and the company showcased the feature at this years CES in Las Vegas.
The current Netflix system has a suggestion algorithm that suggest titles to a account holder based on their previous history. With shared accounts this engine does not work effectively because multiple people with different tastes use it to consumer content of different types. For example if a father likes sports based movies he may end up with recommendations for kids movies thanks to previous orders that were made by his young children. The suggestion engine is a good way for users to discover new content and drive sales for Netflix. With family members all using the same account making the recommended search useless the company can end up loosing sales.
Another issue that comes with the current system is the video queue and the difficulty of managing them for different people.This may get even more difficult when multiple family members ae watching the content and losing auto-save locations.
Personalized profiles separates each users viewing data so that they are treated like a single account. Each family member gets their profile with an avatar and label. If a child is under 12 they will automatically get a profile that falls in Netflix’s “Just for Kids” category.
According to Gigaom the new feature may not show up on regular accounts for another six months.
Source: Venture Beat
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