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RobSMS
Visitor

Questions about channel categories

It seems in the last few days, a tonne of new channels have shown up in the Special Interest category. Most of these new ones are screensavers which I guess could be seen as special interest, but I assume the "screensaver" category would be the better spot to host them.

Is there any sort of guidelines for where your channel can be listed? Am I able to change it to a totally irrelevant category?
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4 REPLIES 4
EnTerr
Roku Guru

Re: Questions about channel categories

Weird!
I would think "special interest" is a dump for everything that cannot be reasonably categorized as one of the categories (jokingly, some kind of uncommon "fetish"). Screensavers OTOH seem to neatly fit into, well "Screensavers" category, so i am puzzled why the authors requested the kitchen sink drain (it's their loss of eyeballs!) and why reviewers approved it. Curious to hear more on it.
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RokuJoel
Binge Watcher

Re: Questions about channel categories

Those are not really screensavers. They are weird oddities that play screensaver-ish video with sound, monetized by pre-roll ads. Because the number of times video is played in a channel is a factor in ranking the channel's popularity, these were messing with popularity of actual screensavers. And yes, special interest is where the oddball and fringy stuff goes, and a few things we don't know what else to do with.

- Joel
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EnTerr
Roku Guru

Re: Questions about channel categories

I just noticed one of these weird oddities has creeped (undetected?) into Games. Name's "Coaster 3D" and all it does is play a closed loop with no interactivity, like so:
  1. "America's Tire" ad

  2. "America's Tire" ad (exactly the same from above)

  3. A video of a simulated roller-coaster ride (with color blur - though not explained, will need "anaglyph glasses" for 3D)

  4. "HGTV: Buying & Selling" ad

  5. "HGTV: Buying & Selling" ad (repeat of #4)

  6. GOTO 1

How did this piece-of-cheat make it into the "Games" category?! Seems like originally it was published in 2014 as "Special Interest" and now got re-categorized somehow. I know you guys (RokuCo) are desperate for games but this doesn't fit under any definition of "game"... heck, YouTube channel is a more entertaining game if we start stretching it - i can watch a same video there but it's more interactive because i can "switch" to different roller-coasters (i.e. video from playlist). Oh - and YouTube does not repeat the ads. Maybe the developer 8ctave ITV cheekily switched the category in metadata update and that wasn't noticed?

This "Coaster 3D" seems to also highlight the issues in the channel ordering at https://channelstore.roku.com/browse/games - right now it's #9. How did it "earn" that position in 1 week? Or does it game the system by playing many short videos?
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RokuJoel
Binge Watcher

Re: Questions about channel categories

@EnTerr: Good Catch!

Thanks, we'll get it sorted.

- Joel
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