Netflix confirms Shuffle Play feature will officially launch this year

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Netflix confirms Shuffle Play feature will officially launch this year

The ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button comes to streaming

 

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

 

Netflix’s Shuffle Play feature, which the company was spotted testing last year, is getting a widespread launch in the first half of 2021. Variety reports the company made the announcement as part of its latest financial results. In its testing phase, Shuffle Play has worked by picking content based on your viewing history, helping you avoid feeling overwhelmed by Netflix’s home screen full of content.

 

Netflix’s COO and chief product officer Greg Peters said the feature is designed for users to “indicate to us that they just want to skip browsing entirely, click one button and we’ll pick a title for them just to instantly play.” During its tests of the feature, Netflix has experimented with including a “Shuffle Play” button on its profile select screen, and a “Play Something” option in its menu.

 

Here’s how that ended up looking:

Interesting new feature @netflix ... but what kind of insane person just says, “yolo, let’s spin the Netflix wheel of fortune” pic.twitter.com/6WDJrmd7pG

— Turner Levison (@TurnerLevison) August 18, 2020

 

Photo by Julia Alexander / The Verge

 

The big question now is what Netflix will end up calling the feature. During its earnings presentation, co-CEO Reed Hastings joked that they might call it “I’m Feeling Lucky,” after the Google search feature that skips straight to the top search result. But Peters quickly shot down that idea.

“We’re going to come up with something better than that, so stand by for this. You’ll see it when it rolls out,” Peters said.

 

Whatever it ends up being called, Shuffle Play will join Netflix’s other recent attempt to make it easier to find content to watch. Last year, it added a “New & Popular” tab to the service, which features a combination of new, popular, and upcoming content.

 

 

Source: Netflix confirms Shuffle Play feature will officially launch this year