Yesterday, you might still have refused to link your Netflix account with Facebook out of worry that your guilty pleasures would be discovered by your friends and (frenemies) on the social network. But today, that fear of embarrassment can already be ditched; no matter how you enjoy your childhood favorite – Pokémon – or any High School Musical installment, those pesky “paparazzi” on Facebook will no longer know. What’s more exciting is that you can now recommend your guilty pleasures to like minds through private messages, and you may get some heartfelt thanks in return.
The new social-recommendation feature was announced by Netflix on September 2. Basically it works like this: after a video has ended, users will be asked whether they want to share it with their Facebook friends, and will be prompted to link their accounts with Facebook if they haven’t done so already. Then a list of friends in thumbnail form will be displayed for users to choose from, and an optional message can be added. After the recommendation is sent, the selected friends will see it next time they sign into Netflix. The entire process is quick and seamless, without the annoyance of sharing the video on their Facebook News Feed or friends’ profiles. This new feature is currently available on iPad, iPhone, Xbox and Playstation, and other platforms including Android, to be introduced in the coming months.
Netflix launched this integration mainly because the number Netflix users who have connected their accounts to Facebook is “less than a majority,” especially in the United States. As Netflix’s director of product innovation Cameron Johnson told Mashable, since Facebook options are only added after a huge audience base is built, the social network is only “a late addition” for users. Thus, the novel feature of private recommendation will act as a “modern water cooler,” through which users can share their TV and movie lives with each other without compromising their privacy and control over their own Facebook profiles. In addition, it’s of course a nice move from a user’s perspective; because who knows, aside from some nice “thank you” messages, we might be able to transform our friends into hardcore fans of Dracarys.
