One Feature that Medium Can Copy From Netflix
Medium, just like Netflix, is an amazing product. It is a paradise for writers. One can stop worrying about the blog creation, customization, selecting colors & fonts, and directly focus on the core content creation. The customization can be done after writing and when one is ready. One always gets the basic presentation ready-made and thus can skip it. At the same time, Medium also helps you to identify possible audiences for your content.
But despite all the good things, Medium lacks in the services it provides to its readers. Reddit & Facebook are better at capturing the attention of the viewers. One can argue that Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit are not blogging platforms and they are not for readers but you cannot skip the part that “they do it right in terms of capturing user attention.” They also have a good algorithm to promote the most captivating content.
Reading, just like watching videos, requires a lot of attention and interest. Netflix noticed the issue a user faces while selecting content. At times, users are just unaware of what they want to watch & face issues while selecting perfect content.
Though you may prefer action over romance, that doesn’t mean you will always watch the action. So, when you don’t have the name of a title that you wish to watch, you end up searching for “what to watch on Netflix?”
When you have a plethora of content available, not knowing what to select is a big issue. A lot of users end up spending time selecting the content that would have otherwise been spent on viewing it. To target this issue, Netflix came up with the shuffle feature. It is a boom for the audience who want to change something in their menu. They can directly indulge in new content without having to scroll through a lot of titles.
Netflix Shuffle Feature & How it can help Medium
Netflix Shuffle feature is called “Play Something” and it is an algorithm that automatically selects content based on your prior experiences, views, interests, regional interests, etc. It saves you from scrolling through hundreds of titles to select one that you should view. And you can use it any number of times.
Medium, currently, doesn’t have any such feature. The readers only get to see what is popular in their area of interest, or get to see the articles of the people/ topics they follow. Despite you refreshing your content homepage multiple times, you don’t get new content. It can be a problem when you want a change.
Shuffle function for Medium: How that can work?
Medium can rely on your reading time to decide what you read most. How do you interact with the combination of various genres (e.g. history with science, animals with rights, technology with freedom, future with politics, etc.)? These learnings can be used to provide random articles for times when you want to shuffle the feed. A new article that covers something that is not common to your previous feed is a refreshing experience. It allows you to unravel and explore horizons that you didn’t expect. It gives you a new perspective. It also helps you to identify new genres that you might be interested in.
