22nd
Thoughts on the Queue
I discussed Koppelman’s feedback about Snackfeed with CC a bit today. Although K may have still thinking youtube terms, CC said that he mentioned the netflix queue. This didn’t strike me as noteworthy until I was reflecting more on Snackfeed in the subway.
When I revisited the Netflix queue concept, I realized it was one of the things that was part of the initial smoothtube brainstorm—the playlist.
Much of Snackfeed’s value right now is as a discovery tool—I think the goal is to provide users with ahah moments where they think, “Oh, wow, I didn’t realize this kind of quality content was freely available on the internet. I should cancel my cable bill.” The friends feed and subscription tools facilitate this goal well.
However, by serving this need and facilitating exploration and discovery, they also create a problem. Efficient discovery is not in a 1:1 ratio with consumption when we measure them on a time scale. Efficient discovery can take a few seconds, while consumption can take hours. Hence, in order to make your bursts of discovery worthwhile, you need a queue system to save the value you created while in exploration/discovery mode. Netflix does an exceptional job with their queue. Online radio sites like hypem and pandora (which I mentioned as comps Snackfeed should learn from in my last post) do a poor job of queueing and saving discovery value.
The queue is definitely worth thinking about a bit more, especially since the discovery tools are getting a lot better now.
What are the current items on the todo list?
What are your reflections on the meeting w Koppelman?
