Sometimes subscribers are in the mood for a TV show or movie, and sometimes they’re looking for “something more snackable,” she said. “We’re testing a vertical video feed on mobile devices that starts to reimagine what mobile is, and kind of meets consumers where they are now and how they’re using mobile today.” (Apparently they figured out how to appeal to people beyond having characters announce what they’re doing as they do it.)
The company rolled out a beta version of the feed that allows users to scroll through clips of its original titles earlier this year, the goal supposedly being to encourage users to actually watch the shows, instead of just continuing to scroll. Now, however, the company has a wider plan for how that feed could be used. Stone reminded people at the conference of the streamer’s Moments feature, which allows users to clip and share scenes from Netflix content. These user generated clips could be incorporated into the feed, but it’s not totally clear. The company is vaguely experimenting with “different types of content,” as well as “different ways to clip and share content,” Stone shared.
Is all of this starting to sound a bit familiar? Stone insists that’s not the intention. “[Netflix] is not intending to copy or chase exactly what a TikTok or others are doing because we think that there’s a certain type of entertainment—or moment of truth—that’s especially valuable to our members, and we really want to be focused there, versus trying to be all things at every moment, which I don’t think needs to be a core part of the strategy,” she said. As an example of how Netflix will differentiate itself, she pointed to the company’s recent deal to host video episodes of some of Spotify’s podcasts. There is podcast content on TikTok, but not those podcasts, as part of Netflix’s deal stipulated that episodes would be removed from YouTube and other social media platforms. Some of the new content will be co-exclusive to both platforms and be available in both mobile and traditional TV formats, she added. We’ll start to see the results of all these experiments in the next few months and through 2026.
