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A question about Watchparty: isn't the trend for people to be not watching the same show at the same time? I mean, I can see networks desperate to stop this tr

by Poiesis 16y ago

A question about Watchparty: isn't the trend for people to be not watching the same show at the same time? I mean, I can see networks desperate to stop this trend so I could see how some established network might want to acquire you. And that's not a bad plan but I'm not sure if that is going to reverse the trend. I mean, if anything gets people watching at the same time it will be social interaction. I just don't know if it will be enough? Or do you have some way to connect people who are viewing asynchronously? If so, I'd love that personally. I do often want to share with other people but I never watch when originally aired. Somehow connecting me with everyone else sounds great except for the fact that at that point you're pretty much talking about a forum at that point and there's plenty of those.

rfawal 16y ago
That's an excellent question that is raised often when I talk about WatchParty. The fact is, however, that 85% of all TV watching is still live, the amount of live TV people watch is increasing, not decreasing (http://goo.gl/X0mH http://goo.gl/X0mH). We're approaching WatchParty as a Lean Startup, so we're concentrating on that 85% to start. We know that plenty of folks timeshift, and we want to provide a great social TV experience for you as well, but it makes more sense to solve a problem for 85% of the market first. Of course I believe we'll be wildly successful and will soon solve your problem, too. Thanks very much for your interest!
iron_ball 16y ago
On the XBox 360, Netflix coordinates with the XBox Live to enable a "watch with party" function. You watch a streaming movie in sync with the other people in your party -- an ad-hoc invite-only group -- while retaining the platform's built-in voice chat with your party.
- rfawal 16y ago
  Yes, we're looking at similar kinds of approaches for WatchParty users. In all likelihood we'll build something that works with GoogleTV and AppleTV, but who knows?

by Poiesis 16y ago

rfawal 16y ago

That's an excellent question that is raised often when I talk about WatchParty. The fact is, however, that 85% of all TV watching is still live, the amount of live TV people watch is increasing, not decreasing (http://goo.gl/X0mH http://goo.gl/X0mH). We're approaching WatchParty as a Lean Startup, so we're concentrating on that 85% to start. We know that plenty of folks timeshift, and we want to provide a great social TV experience for you as well, but it makes more sense to solve a problem for 85% of the market first. Of course I believe we'll be wildly successful and will soon solve your problem, too. Thanks very much for your interest!

iron_ball 16y ago

On the XBox 360, Netflix coordinates with the XBox Live to enable a "watch with party" function. You watch a streaming movie in sync with the other people in your party -- an ad-hoc invite-only group -- while retaining the platform's built-in voice chat with your party.

rfawal 16y ago
Yes, we're looking at similar kinds of approaches for WatchParty users. In all likelihood we'll build something that works with GoogleTV and AppleTV, but who knows?