A thought occurred to me. One that could add some very interesting features to your ecosystem, encourage continued user growth and enhance the engagement on the platform and also increase value of the overall business model. Now I am not and IT guy but I believe that some if not all of this would be relatively easy to achieve both financially from a cost benefit perspective and from a technical perspective.
After a year of isolation and seeing all the suggestions that pop up for me to watch based on my previous viewings, and constantly texting my friends to see what hey are watching, I thought wouldn't it be nice if Roku added a social aspect to their platform? Imagine being able to add a friends feature on your platform that would allow users to suggest movies and shows to their friends. There could be a category on my dashboard that will provide the list to me of the suggested shows that my friends sent to me to watch. There could be a general list of what my friends as a collective group have ranked highly after watching and a list of things friends watched and specifically thought I might enjoy. And you could also leave a quick snippet/review about the film or why you recommended it using the voice remote for dictation.
Friends could choose to share their watchlist, favorites, movies they hated, create movie theme lists for friends and also share how they rated those movies etc with their friends. This information could also be used to find your movie soulmate amongst you friends. Maybe this whole idea would need to be a different app on the platform that integrates with Roku.
It also occurred to me that having friends on the platform would allow you to get closer to truly create a movie going experience with a friend by being able to launch a movie simultaneously with a friend. As going to the movies in person is slowly becoming a thing of the past, watching movies needs to be enhanced when watching from your own couch. If we could watch at the same time and if there is a basic way to emote during the film in a way that the other viewer could see (hearts, clapping, tears ect) you could share in the experience together. Ever watch the youtube channels showing the viewing parties for game of thrones or video of the audience reactions to Avengers endgame, the level of energy that goes through those crowds make you feel apart of something. However, watching a home by yourself, lacks those moments. However it could be argued it enhances the viewing experience if it happens to be a scary movie.
From a numbers perspective maybe this gets more people to watch new releases, because they watch them together because of the "peer pressure" to join in, instead of wait for the price to drop, or until they can find it for free, so it could be a boost from a revenue perspective.
Adding a social experience to the ecosystem, could add numerous advantages going forward from a competitive aspect both from a features aspect but also a user growth perspective, and it will really enhance the experience for the user, increasing our engagement!
Just some of the thoughts, but I would be happy to discuss them further... Run it up the ladder.
