Netflix has a podcast functionality problem
There’s a user-experience issue with the Netflix app that is going to be a hinderance when the service starts launching video podcasts on the platform early next year. It looks like this:
The last couple of years has seen a shift in podcasting move towards video. It’s thanks to YouTube driving podcast listening. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that all of this video podcast consumption is from people actively watching. They’re not.
People are listening to podcasts as they work. Most of the time they are only glancing at the video player every so often.
Most video podcast consumption is happening the same way audio consumption happens - it is on users phones, in their pockets, with just the audio being consumed.
Unless there is an app update, the experience on Netflix is going to be based off the misapprehension that video podcasts are active viewing. And look, maybe behaviours will shift when video podcasts do debut on Netflix next year. Certainly there are video podcast productions that encourage active viewing - the Amy Poehler podcast is a great example of that.
For YouTube premium subscribers, there is the functionality to turn the screen off and just listen to the audio. This functionality is also there on Spotify. It’s how normal people are doing it.
Netflix video, right now, will not play the audio without the screen being unlocked and the video playing on screen (at least on iOS - I assume the same applies for Android).
This is just something to think about early next year if/when the podcast viewing numbers are pretty weak.
Happy birthday to my childhood best friend
The Nintendo Entertainment System was released in the United States on 18 October 1985. That’s 40 years ago.
Now, we didn’t get the NES here in Australia until July 1987. I don’t think we had a video game console in the house until around 1989 and even then, it wasn’t an official NES - it was this weird off-brand machine that played NES cartridges when plugged into an adapter.
But boy oh boy, did that video game console take on a life in our household. It was, as the Japanese originally marketed it, as a family computer device with my parents, sister, and I all playing it.
Mike Drucker has his own memories of playing the original NES. He has this piece in The Guardian:
It’s also worth mentioning that I’m in the first generation that completely missed the Atari home consoles that dominated earlier in the 80s. Even though Atari systems were still around at the time, kids my age talked about them with the same historical distance we talked about the second world war. Even seeing an Atari felt like catching a glimpse of an ancient artefact that none of us understood well enough to enjoy. Watching a neighbour turn on their Atari was almost shocking to me: the basketball game literally used a square for the ball. No. No, no thank you. I need to sit down for a second.
But the NES – oh, the NES had graphics that actually looked like the arcade games. Was it perfect? Of course not! Some of them look downright terrible now! But when you’re five years old, an accurate but slightly washed out version of Pac-Man is still Pac-Man. While my parents never let me play shooting galleries at carnivals (who’s to say why?), Duck Hunt was the next best thing. No! Better! Because we all realised almost instantly that we could just press that stupid plastic gun to the screen and nail it every time. This is a point-blank technique that you can only learn from a 40-year-old video game or by becoming a mafia hitman.
I’m not sure that many of us have deep, emotional takes on playing the NES early in life. They were a mere entertainment in the world that lit up our imaginations for a while and certainly brought family and friends together. The relative simplicity of the consoles, I think, don’t really stimulate a lot of deep insight into the human condition.
The NES brought a lot of joy into my childhood home. And that’s what I’ll be thinking about as I consider this 40th anniversary.
News Desk
Charitable archivist Film is Fabulous! has hinted they may have found lost episodes of Doctor Who in private collections. It’s important that those in the UK check in old toy boxes and tree houses - you never know what you may find. Read: Bleeding Cool
If you spent the weekend blitzling through the very good third season of The Diplomat, you might be keen to read showrunner Debra Cahn talking about the decision-making going into the plotting of the series. Read: Deadline
That’s the newsletter for today. It was a very quiet weekend.
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