Tag: Media

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How Spotify ran the largest Google Dataflow job ever for Wrapped 2019

In early December, Spotify launched its annual personalized Wrapped playlist with its users’ most-streamed sounds of 2019. That has become a bit of a tradition and isn’t necessarily anything new, but for 2019, it also gave users a look back at how they used Spotify over the last decade. Because this was quite a large job, Spotify gave us a bit of a look under the covers of how it generated these lists for its ever-growing number of free and paid subscribers.

It’s no secret that Spotify is a big Google Cloud Platform user. Back in 2016, the music streaming service publicly said that it was going to move to Google Cloud, after all, and in 2018, it disclosed that it would spend at least $450 million on its Google Cloud infrastructure in the following three years.

It was also back in 2018, for that year’s Wrapped, that Spotify ran the largest Google Cloud Dataflow job ever run on the platform, a service the company started experimenting with a few years earlier. “Back in 2015, we built and open-sourced a big data processing Scala API for Apache Beam and Google Cloud Dataflow called Scio,” Spotify’s VP of Engineering Tyson Singer told me. “We chose Dataflow over Dataproc because it scales with less operational overhead and Dataflow fit with our expected needs for streaming processing. Now we have a great open-source toolset designed and optimized for Dataflow, which in addition to being used by most internal teams, is also used outside of Spotify.”

For Wrapped 2019, which includes the annual and decadal lists, Spotify ran a job that was five times larger than in 2018 — but it did so at three-quarters of the cost. Singer attributes this to his team’s familiarity with the platform. “With this type of global scale, complexity is a natural consequence. By working closely with Google Cloud’s engineering teams and specialists and drawing learnings from previous years, we were able to run one of the most sophisticated Dataflow jobs ever written.”

Still, even with this expertise, the team couldn’t just iterate on the full data set as it figured out how to best analyze the data and use it to tell the most interesting stories to its users. “Our jobs to process this would be large and complex; we needed to decouple the complexity and processing in order to not overwhelm Google Cloud Dataflow,” Singer said. “This meant that we had to get more creative when it came to going from idea, to data analysis, to producing unique stories per user, and we would have to scale this in time and at or below cost. If we weren’t careful, we risked being wasteful with resources and slowing down downstream teams.”

To handle this workload, Spotify not only split its internal teams into three groups (data processing, client-facing and design, and backend systems), but also split the data processing jobs into smaller pieces. That marked a very different approach for the team. “Last year Spotify had one huge job that used a specific feature within Dataflow called “Shuffle.” The idea here was that having a lot of data, we needed to sort through it, in order to understand who did what. While this is quite powerful, it can be costly if you have large amounts of data.”

This year, the company’s engineers minimized the use of Shuffle by using Google Cloud’s Bigtable as an intermediate storage layer. “Bigtable was used as a remediation tool between Dataflow jobs in order for them to process and store more data in a parallel way, rather than the need to always regroup the data,” said Singer. “By breaking down our Dataflow jobs into smaller components — and reusing core functionality — we were able to speed up our jobs and make them more resilient.”

Singer attributes at least a part of the cost savings to this technique of using Bigtable, but he also noted that the team decomposed the problem into data collection, aggregation and data transformation jobs, which it then split into multiple separate jobs. “This way, we were not only able to process more data in parallel, but be more selective about which jobs to rerun, keeping our costs down.”

Many of the techniques the engineers on Singer’s teams developed are currently in use across Spotify. “The great thing about how Wrapped works is that we are able to build out more tools to understand a user, while building a great product for them,” he said. “Our specialized techniques and expertise of Scio, Dataflow and big data processing, in general, is widely used to power Spotify’s portfolio of products.”

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Spotify mimics Apple’s design with new podcast show page updates

Spotify’s ongoing investments in the podcast-streaming side of its business helped boost podcast listening on its service by 200% last year. But today, only 16% of Spotify’s monthly listeners are engaging with podcats — a number the company today hopes to nudge higher by redesigning the podcast side of its streaming app. The new layout now makes it easier to view information about podcasts and improves discovery of new shows.

In particular, Spotify has given podcast show trailers a more prominent position in its app.

Show trailers help podcasts find new listeners by offering a concise introduction to the podcast and its creators. A good trailer hooks listeners on the show’s concept by selling its strengths, or even by offering a snippet of content that makes listeners hungry to hear more.

In the updated version of Spotify’s app, these trailers are labeled “trailer” and are highlighted at the top of the episode list, separated from the content as Apple does in its own podcasts app.

The belief here is that listeners need an easier way to check out the different podcasts out there, without having to commit to full episodes. That’s more important than ever as Spotify’s podcast library expands. The app’s catalog now has over 700,000 podcasts across all sorts of topics — a figure that’s growing quickly. In January, Spotify was at the Consumer Electronics Show touting its “over 500,000” podcasts. By the time of this month’s earnings, it was using the higher number.

Also to aid in discovery, Spotify is adding descriptive show categories underneath the show’s description. These will be simple labels, like “true crime,” “personal stories,” “travel,” “relationships,” and more. This change is also focused on catching up with market leader Apple Podcasts, which already categorizes its podcasts in a similar way.

The other major change is to the landing page for podcast shows in Spotify, which are getting a revamp to be more readable at a glance.

The updated layout has moved the descriptions up to the top of the page, so you don’t have to swipe on a show to read about it. Before, Spotify would display the podcast’s thumbnail image at the top, and you’d swipe left to view the description. Now, the layout looks more like — yes, you guessed it — Apple Podcasts.

The combined changes do make Spotify’s app more usable for podcast listening and discovery — especially for people who are used to Apple Podcasts’ design and layout, but are now making the jump to Spotify. However, Spotify’s real advantage in podcasts isn’t just how it can mimic Apple’s better design, but how it’s catering to creators, investing in originals and exclusives, personalizing its recommendations, and now, its ads.

Spotify says the redesign is rolling out to its mobile app, starting today.

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How TikTok decides who to make famous

Read part one of this post, “Leveraging TikTok for growth,” on TechCrunch.

Leveraging TikTok for growth

Part 2: The TikTok System

So what do we mean when we say “then, the post is reviewed by an AI?” TikTok is the most extensive content moderation system that has ever existed.

The 411 on content moderation

To make that claim, we need to understand the status quo in moderation today. Content moderation was one of the first product problems of user-generated content that computer-vision scientists were tasked with solving (ie. filtering out porn). With very little content moderation on one end of the spectrum (like 4chan) and heavy moderation on the other end (like TikTok), “what’s the right balance?” is a complex product question that touches all the major platforms today — especially when you as a consumer might not even be aware that it’s being filtered out because of the “content bubbles” we live in.

From a product perspective, designing for content usually only involves three variations on a theme:

  1. Search: goal-oriented, I know what I’m looking for (Google)
  2. Browse: aimless, not sure what I want, anything good? (Netflix)
  3. Contextual: finding something else along the way (Wikipedia)

These systems are present in some form or another in almost every piece of software we use. When browse-based systems are the priority in a product: algorithmic feeds or “discover” screens (like the FYP), the possibility of users living in a content bubble at scale is inherent in the design. We know that if platforms can influence your consumption of content if it’s viable and profitable to them… then, of course, they can influence public opinions.

Due to these content bubbles (like the FYP) In the last few years, the word “algorithm” has worked its way into the vernacular of non-nerds talking about their Facebook feeds, why their Insta post isn’t doing well or what Netflix and Spotify are serving them up to enjoy.

Censorship in Entertainment

Posted on

How TikTok decides who to make famous

Read part one of this post, “Leveraging TikTok for growth,” on TechCrunch.

Leveraging TikTok for growth

Part 2: The TikTok System

So what do we mean when we say “then, the post is reviewed by an AI?” TikTok is the most extensive content moderation system that has ever existed.

The 411 on content moderation

To make that claim, we need to understand the status quo in moderation today. Content moderation was one of the first product problems of user-generated content that computer-vision scientists were tasked with solving (ie. filtering out porn). With very little content moderation on one end of the spectrum (like 4chan) and heavy moderation on the other end (like TikTok), “what’s the right balance?” is a complex product question that touches all the major platforms today — especially when you as a consumer might not even be aware that it’s being filtered out because of the “content bubbles” we live in.

From a product perspective, designing for content usually only involves three variations on a theme:

  1. Search: goal-oriented, I know what I’m looking for (Google)
  2. Browse: aimless, not sure what I want, anything good? (Netflix)
  3. Contextual: finding something else along the way (Wikipedia)

These systems are present in some form or another in almost every piece of software we use. When browse-based systems are the priority in a product: algorithmic feeds or “discover” screens (like the FYP), the possibility of users living in a content bubble at scale is inherent in the design. We know that if platforms can influence your consumption of content if it’s viable and profitable to them… then, of course, they can influence public opinions.

Due to these content bubbles (like the FYP) In the last few years, the word “algorithm” has worked its way into the vernacular of non-nerds talking about their Facebook feeds, why their Insta post isn’t doing well or what Netflix and Spotify are serving them up to enjoy.

Censorship in Entertainment

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Leveraging TikTok for growth

Geneviève Patterson Contributor
Dr. Geneviève Patterson is co-founder and CSTO of TRASH.
Hannah Donovan Contributor
Hannah Donovan is the founder and CEO of TRASH.

Once you have a product, distributing it becomes the next challenge for any entrepreneur. At TRASH (one-tap video editing), we looked to TikTok as a potential marketing channel. As early learnings started to roll in, we decided to share what’s going on inside this exploding and mysterious beast.

Part 1: Leveraging TikTok for growth

The advantage of having a deep tech company that uses AI to help speed the process of editing video is that we can do it for “free.” This is pretty cool when you consider that editing a semi-pro video will run you a minimum of $1,500 and six hours in post-production. When we started working on distribution and how to hack our CAC (customer acquisition costs), TikTok was first.

When posting to TikTok, there are three key areas to pay attention to:

• What contributes to your authority score
• The review process and making it to the For You Page
• Making better content (and what you might be doing wrong)

The most critical part of posting to TikTok is your authority ranking, which is: “how much of an influencer are you?” Your authority ranking is directly tied to your verticals (the styles you’re making videos in).

What contributes to your authority ranking

  1. New accounts. Like your Uber five-star passenger rating, every post you make contributes to your score.
  2. Multiple accounts. TikTok allows for multiple accounts, but pro tip: multiple accounts from one phone will flag you as a business account and like many platforms, they’ll de-prioritize you unless you’re a paying advertiser. If you’re giving some of these things a try, limit your account login to one device.
  3. The first five videos you post. TikTok wants you to create types of videos that stay in the same vertical. So if you are making meme videos in your first five, TikTok will basically say, “this is a meme account.” So, the first five are critical: you need to have a plan and focus.
  4. Verticality. TikTok doesn’t want you being experimental. Pick a content vertical and stay with it. Content that varies or doesn’t have a specific theme won’t weigh well. If you start to make videos that fall into a different category, it’s like starting over because you don’t have authority on that vertical yet.
  5. Views. If your videos get 100 or fewer views, you’re going to have a zombie account, so delete and start again. Videos that get between 1000–3000 views mean you have a mid-tier account. Videos that get 10,000+ views mean you have a “head” account.
  6. Viewing completion. This is one of the most important factors. Your video needs to be viewed from start to finish to count for this metric. The key things that help with this are:
  • Short videos. Videos can be up to 60 seconds long, but TikTok recommends to their advertisers that they be 9–15 seconds (the internet thinks the average length of a TikTok is 30 seconds).
  • Looping videos. If the video is watched repeatedly, then its Completion Ratio will be over 100% and will increase the overall performance rating of the video. A common practice is to create seamless loops in the video so that viewers are tricked into watching it multiple times.
  • Format. Often there will be a challenge format with a punchline at the end. People understand this format so they’ll stick around to see the punchline.
  • Matching action to music. Always more satisfying to watch.

The review process and making it to FYP

So, now that you know all the ways you can eff up your authority score, have a plan for the type of account you want to create and created five killer videos, you’re ready to start posting. Here’s what happens next, including how to get coveted FYP (For You Page).

  1. Authority-based automatic distribution. Based on your score, your video goes out to a geo-local network of about 300–500 viewers. At this point, there are no real checks on your content.
  2. Integrity-based AI review and data collection. Shortly after this initial fan-out to a few hundred people, it’s being checked frame-by-frame by an AI for inappropriate content, copyright issues, etc. It’s then given a new weighting (integrity rating) and is either de-listed or distributed again.
  3. Delayed explosion. This is one of the biggest differences between TikTok and other platforms and where you have a second chance of getting onto your FYP. Delayed explosion is why you should carefully consider deleting old content, regardless of how well or poorly it did before. Periodically (it’s unclear what timescale this happens on, it could be weeks or months), TikTok hides the publish date of content on the FYP. TikTok will test your older content and restart a cycle that looks something like: a small batch of content for about two hours; then a medium batch where the AI is looking at the key metrics that feed into your authority rating; finally a large batch that includes your integrity rating (no “bad” content or content they consider “bad”). At this point, it shows something like, “hey, we’re a top 5% video.”
  4. Human review. A human reviewer will see the video with these scores and decide if it has the potential to be a super-viral video. They’ll also double-check for copyright and “bad” content that may have slipped past the AI in step two. To be promoted to the FYP, the content must fit TikTok’s (and as a Beijing-based company, inevitably China’s) idea of what is nice and popular in the geo-local region. Common things that have been noticed are people who represent conventional beauty standards (though this may also be algorithmic bias trained on human bias), no strong political opinions (unless they’re joking or meme-y in nature in certain countries only… though probably not Winnie The Pooh) and no violations of the most reactive local social norms. There’s definitely a degree of… homogeneity going on here. This might offer some insight into why TikTok wants you to create content that’s based on copying? It makes it easier to review and stick to the format of not just what “works” (ie. is going viral) but what aligns with their opinions of what is okay.

This vid says it all.

@dupreedotexeLet me know if this is on your fyp #differentbreed #BestThingSince #fyp #foryou♬ original sound – r_tista7

Making better content (and what you might be doing wrong!)

Pick a format. Because verticalization is key to your authority score, you need to pick a format and work within it. If you want to have different personalities, use different accounts. This will boost your authority score as well as help with gaining followers because their expectations will be set for the type of content you make. Examples of vertices that do well are comedy, memes, dance, vlogs, creation/DIY and hacks.

Copy the format. TikTok encourages many forms of co-creation such as reactions, collaboration/remix and mimicking. This has created formats, trends and memes throughout the platform. Rather than seen as ripping off other creators, audiences enjoy trends and become inspired to create their own version. TikTokers like Charli D’amelio create unofficial choreography for pop songs and just copying those dance moves can send a song to the top of the charts. The next iconic dances like “Thriller,” “Single Ladies” or “Gangam Style” will be created by someone who may have no real connection or ownership to the original song.

In general, Gen Z is known for being less “solo” in their pursuits than Millennials. We think this collaborative approach to creation is a sign of the times not just for social entertainment, but the next wave of creation tools and platforms. Know your music: songs are one of the best ways to get people to understand your meme content. A lot of viewers will already know what your content is going to be about just based on the song, so picking the right song for the format you want to copy is key — this can’t be an afterthought and might be a place you’re going wrong!

Get ready to sell. If Instagram is QVC for Millennials, TikTok is the line outside the Supreme store for Gen Z. Instead of glossy, in-your-face advertisements for fitness and beauty, the shopping is going to be more “authentic” and narrative. Shoppable video is already a major thing in Asia and it’s reportedly being tested on TikTok to come to the rest of the world soon.

We suspect Gen Z will simply treat Amazon like the Google Search of Stuff & Things and the new social platforms become the virtual mall. We also suspect TikTok will weigh shoppable content more highly in the FYP algo because money.

What’s it going to look like? We don’t know, but maybe something like this:

Mockup of what we might be in for (this is not real!)

Read the conclusion to this post, “How TikTok decides who to make famous,” on Extra Crunch.

Posted on

Leveraging TikTok for growth

Geneviève Patterson Contributor
Dr. Geneviève Patterson is co-founder and CSTO of TRASH.
Hannah Donovan Contributor
Hannah Donovan is the founder and CEO of TRASH.

Once you have a product, distributing it becomes the next challenge for any entrepreneur. At TRASH (one-tap video editing), we looked to TikTok as a potential marketing channel. As early learnings started to roll in, we decided to share what’s going on inside this exploding and mysterious beast.

Part 1: Leveraging TikTok for growth

The advantage of having a deep tech company that uses AI to help speed the process of editing video is that we can do it for “free.” This is pretty cool when you consider that editing a semi-pro video will run you a minimum of $1,500 and six hours in post-production. When we started working on distribution and how to hack our CAC (customer acquisition costs), TikTok was first.

When posting to TikTok, there are three key areas to pay attention to:

• What contributes to your authority score
• The review process and making it to the For You Page
• Making better content (and what you might be doing wrong)

The most critical part of posting to TikTok is your authority ranking, which is: “how much of an influencer are you?” Your authority ranking is directly tied to your verticals (the styles you’re making videos in).

What contributes to your authority ranking

  1. New accounts. Like your Uber five-star passenger rating, every post you make contributes to your score.
  2. Multiple accounts. TikTok allows for multiple accounts, but pro tip: multiple accounts from one phone will flag you as a business account and like many platforms, they’ll de-prioritize you unless you’re a paying advertiser. If you’re giving some of these things a try, limit your account login to one device.
  3. The first five videos you post. TikTok wants you to create types of videos that stay in the same vertical. So if you are making meme videos in your first five, TikTok will basically say, “this is a meme account.” So, the first five are critical: you need to have a plan and focus.
  4. Verticality. TikTok doesn’t want you being experimental. Pick a content vertical and stay with it. Content that varies or doesn’t have a specific theme won’t weigh well. If you start to make videos that fall into a different category, it’s like starting over because you don’t have authority on that vertical yet.
  5. Views. If your videos get 100 or fewer views, you’re going to have a zombie account, so delete and start again. Videos that get between 1000–3000 views mean you have a mid-tier account. Videos that get 10,000+ views mean you have a “head” account.
  6. Viewing completion. This is one of the most important factors. Your video needs to be viewed from start to finish to count for this metric. The key things that help with this are:
  • Short videos. Videos can be up to 60 seconds long, but TikTok recommends to their advertisers that they be 9–15 seconds (the internet thinks the average length of a TikTok is 30 seconds).
  • Looping videos. If the video is watched repeatedly, then its Completion Ratio will be over 100% and will increase the overall performance rating of the video. A common practice is to create seamless loops in the video so that viewers are tricked into watching it multiple times.
  • Format. Often there will be a challenge format with a punchline at the end. People understand this format so they’ll stick around to see the punchline.
  • Matching action to music. Always more satisfying to watch.

The review process and making it to FYP

So, now that you know all the ways you can eff up your authority score, have a plan for the type of account you want to create and created five killer videos, you’re ready to start posting. Here’s what happens next, including how to get coveted FYP (For You Page).

  1. Authority-based automatic distribution. Based on your score, your video goes out to a geo-local network of about 300–500 viewers. At this point, there are no real checks on your content.
  2. Integrity-based AI review and data collection. Shortly after this initial fan-out to a few hundred people, it’s being checked frame-by-frame by an AI for inappropriate content, copyright issues, etc. It’s then given a new weighting (integrity rating) and is either de-listed or distributed again.
  3. Delayed explosion. This is one of the biggest differences between TikTok and other platforms and where you have a second chance of getting onto your FYP. Delayed explosion is why you should carefully consider deleting old content, regardless of how well or poorly it did before. Periodically (it’s unclear what timescale this happens on, it could be weeks or months), TikTok hides the publish date of content on the FYP. TikTok will test your older content and restart a cycle that looks something like: a small batch of content for about two hours; then a medium batch where the AI is looking at the key metrics that feed into your authority rating; finally a large batch that includes your integrity rating (no “bad” content or content they consider “bad”). At this point, it shows something like, “hey, we’re a top 5% video.”
  4. Human review. A human reviewer will see the video with these scores and decide if it has the potential to be a super-viral video. They’ll also double-check for copyright and “bad” content that may have slipped past the AI in step two. To be promoted to the FYP, the content must fit TikTok’s (and as a Beijing-based company, inevitably China’s) idea of what is nice and popular in the geo-local region. Common things that have been noticed are people who represent conventional beauty standards (though this may also be algorithmic bias trained on human bias), no strong political opinions (unless they’re joking or meme-y in nature in certain countries only… though probably not Winnie The Pooh) and no violations of the most reactive local social norms. There’s definitely a degree of… homogeneity going on here. This might offer some insight into why TikTok wants you to create content that’s based on copying? It makes it easier to review and stick to the format of not just what “works” (ie. is going viral) but what aligns with their opinions of what is okay.

This vid says it all.

@dupreedotexeLet me know if this is on your fyp #differentbreed #BestThingSince #fyp #foryou♬ original sound – r_tista7

Making better content (and what you might be doing wrong!)

Pick a format. Because verticalization is key to your authority score, you need to pick a format and work within it. If you want to have different personalities, use different accounts. This will boost your authority score as well as help with gaining followers because their expectations will be set for the type of content you make. Examples of vertices that do well are comedy, memes, dance, vlogs, creation/DIY and hacks.

Copy the format. TikTok encourages many forms of co-creation such as reactions, collaboration/remix and mimicking. This has created formats, trends and memes throughout the platform. Rather than seen as ripping off other creators, audiences enjoy trends and become inspired to create their own version. TikTokers like Charli D’amelio create unofficial choreography for pop songs and just copying those dance moves can send a song to the top of the charts. The next iconic dances like “Thriller,” “Single Ladies” or “Gangam Style” will be created by someone who may have no real connection or ownership to the original song.

In general, Gen Z is known for being less “solo” in their pursuits than Millennials. We think this collaborative approach to creation is a sign of the times not just for social entertainment, but the next wave of creation tools and platforms. Know your music: songs are one of the best ways to get people to understand your meme content. A lot of viewers will already know what your content is going to be about just based on the song, so picking the right song for the format you want to copy is key — this can’t be an afterthought and might be a place you’re going wrong!

Get ready to sell. If Instagram is QVC for Millennials, TikTok is the line outside the Supreme store for Gen Z. Instead of glossy, in-your-face advertisements for fitness and beauty, the shopping is going to be more “authentic” and narrative. Shoppable video is already a major thing in Asia and it’s reportedly being tested on TikTok to come to the rest of the world soon.

We suspect Gen Z will simply treat Amazon like the Google Search of Stuff & Things and the new social platforms become the virtual mall. We also suspect TikTok will weigh shoppable content more highly in the FYP algo because money.

What’s it going to look like? We don’t know, but maybe something like this:

Mockup of what we might be in for (this is not real!)

Read the conclusion to this post, “How TikTok decides who to make famous,” on Extra Crunch.

Posted on

Daily Crunch: HQ Trivia is dead

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. HQ Trivia shuts down after acquisition falls through

HQ Trivia is dead. On Valentine’s Day, the company laid off its full team of 25. The company had a deal in the works to be acquired, but the buyer pulled out and the investors aren’t willing to fund it any longer, according to a statement from CEO and co-founder Rus Yusupov.

At least the game went out with a bonkers finale, where the hosts cursed, sprayed champagne, threatened to defecate on the homes of trolls in the chat window and begged for new jobs.

2. Living with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip

Brian Heater says he enjoyed his (admittedly brief) time with the Galaxy Z Flip. In fact, in many ways, it’s exactly the device that Samsung’s original foldable should have been.

3. Google ends its free Wi-Fi program Station

Google is winding down Google Station, a program where it worked with partners to bring free Wi-Fi to more than 400 railway stations in India and “thousands” of other public places in several additional pockets of the world.

4. Facebook pushes EU for dilute and fuzzy internet content rules

“I do think that there should be regulation on harmful content,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a Q&A session at the Munich Security Conference. He then suggested that Facebook should fall “somewhere in between” media and telco regulation.

5. Is tech socialism really on the rise?

In the second part of our interview with writer/ethicist Ben Tarnoff, he goes in-depth on the relationship between socialism and technology. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

6. Oyo’s revenue surged in FY19, but loss widened, too

Budget-lodging startup Oyo on Monday reported a loss of $335 million on $951 million revenue globally for the financial year ending March 31, 2019, and pledged to cut down on its spending as the India-headquartered firm grows cautious about its aggressive expansion. (Yes, it seems a bit late to be talking about earnings from 2018-19, but that’s how Indian finance law works.)

7. This week’s TechCrunch podcasts

The latest full episode of Equity discusses a big funding round for meditation app Headspace, while its Monday news roundup looks at global growth concerns due to coronavirus. And over at Original Content, we’ve got a review of “Mythic Quest,” the video game-focused comedy on Apple TV+.

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Redbox enters the free, ad-supported streaming market

Redbox has entered the ad-supported streaming market with the launch of Redbox Free Live TV. The company, best known for its DVD rental kiosks, has been dabbling with streaming for years as consumer demand for DVD rentals has simultaneously declined. But despite its name, Redbox’s new streaming service isn’t offering “live TV” similar to what you’d get on a TV streaming service like YouTube TV or Hulu with Live TV. Instead, the new service offers a curated set of ad-supported movies and TV shows, similar to The Roku Channel, IMDb TV or TiVo Plus, for example.

This free content is organized into channels, including those from brands like TMZ, USA Today, Fail Army, Now This, FilmRise, batteryPOP, Filmhub, Food52 and others. Redbox has also put together its own thematic groupings, like Redbox Comedy, Redbox Rush and Redbox Spotlight, to help users discover what to watch. While some of the titles will come and go due to content deals, there will be something available to watch at any time — just like there is with live television.

We understand Redbox is preparing to make a formal announcement about the service’s launch this week. But its arrival was spotted ahead of time by Cord Cutters News and consequently, the news spread.

Redbox declined to comment.

The service expands on Redbox’s earlier efforts in streaming, called Redbox on Demand. Launched publicly in 2017, Redbox on Demand is the company’s online marketplace for movies and TV for rental and purchase. Those titles can then be saved in your Redbox On Demand library and watched on a compatible smart TV, media streaming device, PC, tablet or phone. They also can be cast to a TV by way of AirPlay, Chromecast, Miracast or Screencast.

Redbox Free Live TV, meanwhile, is currently available on iPhone, iPad and Android devices, in addition to the web. However, the company says the service is “only available to a select audience” at this time, but will soon be offered nationwide. (Perhaps as soon as this week.)

Like other free, ad-supported streaming services on the market, Redbox Free Live TV doesn’t require users to subscribe, but instead runs commercial breaks as a means of generating revenue.

For rivals like Roku, ad-supported streaming has performed well. The Roku Channel grew to 56 million users in 2019, and is now one of the U.S.’s top three ad-supported services, the company revealed in last week’s earnings.

But Roku benefits from also operating the platform where The Roku Channel resides — meaning it can promote the channel’s content through Roku’s own built-in search feature, navigational menus and elsewhere. Redbox, meanwhile, is hoping to transition customers interested in physical media rentals to digital rentals, and now to free streaming. It’s a much harder sell.

On top of that, the content on Redbox Free Live TV is fairly niche — news and entertainment, but limited to older shows and movies, for the most part, along with content from digital brands.

Further details about Redbox Free Live TV are likely to emerge when Redbox goes public with the service later this week.

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Original Content podcast: ‘Mythic Quest’ is a likable comedy with a single standout episode

There’s plenty to like about “Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet,” a new series on Apple TV+ — its sympathetic-but-critical portrayal of the video game industry, its goofy-but-likable characters and a couple of big surprises that come at the end of the season.

But what really stood out to us — as we discuss on the latest episode of the Original Content podcast — was a single episode, “A Dark Quiet Death.”

Without getting into spoilers, it’s probably safe to reveal that the episode mostly stands apart from the rest of the season, telling a self-contained story about two characters (played by Jake Johnson and Cristin Milioti) who, after they create a quirky horror video game that turns into a surprise hit, discover that success isn’t all its cracked up to be.

Where the rest of “Mythic Quest” is a broad comedy (with the aforementioned likable characters and surprising plot), “A Dark Quiet Death” is more of a drama that quietly — but agonizingly — portrays the tensions between commerce and art. And if we have a criticism, it’s that the episode’s achievement can make the rest of the show feel a little silly in comparison.

We also discuss Anthony’s interview with the creators of the show and how “Mythic Quest” might have been shaped by the involvement of video game company Ubisoft. And before we begin the review, we react to this year’s Oscars.

You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

And if you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:

0:00 Intro
0:27 Oscars discussion
17:54 “Mythic Quest” review
50:31 “Mythic Quest” spoiler discussion

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Netflix fends off new streaming rivals by way of Samsung partnership

As the streaming battles heat up, Netflix is hoping a new partnership with Samsung will help it fend off rivals. At Samsung’s Unpacked event this week, the mobile device maker announced a deal with Netflix that will bring exclusive bonus content associated with several Netflix original shows to its Galaxy smartphones in the months ahead. The partnership also allows Netflix to more deeply integrate its streaming service with Samsung devices.

The latter part of the partnership involving device integration is fairly standard. In Netflix’s case, Samsung will allow users to launch Netflix content by way of its voice assistant Bixby. Netflix will also deliver recommendations to Samsung users, and will be better integrated into specific Samsung mobile features, like search and its discovery platform, Samsung Daily.

It’s not unusual for Samsung to work with tech companies to offer tighter integration and distribution for their app. For example, Samsung and Spotify announced a formal partnership in 2018, which has since resulted in consumer-facing features like Spotify’s deep integration with the new Galaxy Buds+, Galaxy S20, and Galaxy Z Flip.

The new Netflix content partnership, on the other hand, is unique.

Though Netflix didn’t go so far as to announce original series or movies only available to Samsung users, it will offer bonus content to Samsung device owners that won’t be found elsewhere. This includes behind-the-scenes footage, companion stories, and other bonus content — much of it filmed by the Samsung Galaxy S20’s new camera, of course.

Initially, bonus content will be available for shows including “Narcos: Mexico,” “Sintonia,” “Elite,” and “Netflix is a Joke.” Netflix says more bonus content will become available in the future.

The two companies have a decade-long history relationship which has seen them working together on joint marketing campaigns and other advertising. However, they’ve not before done a content deal like this.

“The mission of this partnership [is] to make the Netflix viewing experience on Samsung mobile the absolute best it can be,” said Netflix CMO Jackie Lee-Joe, announcing the company’s plans at Samsung’s event. “This means that even more users can enjoy our best-in-class stories across all genres through even better product integration with Galaxy mobile devices,” she noted.

The partnership comes at a critical time for Netflix. Its subscriber growth in the U.S. has gone flat, even as its international growth is booming. More importantly, perhaps, is how Netflix is coming up against a whole host of new streaming competitors with money to burn — including Disney+, Apple TV+, WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, NBCU’s Peacock, and Quibi.

What’s worse is that these new streaming services already have ways to tightly integrate with mobile devices or have partnerships allowing them to distribute their service to millions.

For example, [TechCrunch parent] Verizon is offering its mobile subscribers a free year of Disney+. Jeffrey Katzenberg’s mobile streaming service Quibi is partnering with T-Mobile. NBCU owner Comcast has its own mobile network, Xfinity Mobile, and HBO Max hails from AT&T’s WarnerMedia. And Apple, for now, is just giving away Apple TV+ for free to anyone who buys a new iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, or Mac.

That leaves Netflix without a competitive distribution strategy. And its only viable option to get similar global scale is Samsung, which had an 18.8% worldwide market share in Q4 2019 (in terms of shipments), compared with Apple’s 20%. Samsung also has solid distribution in key international markets where Netflix is seeing its strongest growth.

“We believe this significant partnership will provide millions of Samsung Mobile users across the globe the best mobile entertainment experience, and make discovering new stories around the world easier than ever,” said Lee-Joe.