- Netflix presents clips
- They are vertical video clips for your own content.
- Control and sharing are marginal, but there may be another play here.
Netflix Clips is a curious thing. It appeared on the streaming service’s mobile app on Monday and produces what could be the platform’s first vertically scrolling content feed. I just don’t know why it exists.
Hit that. I know, but maybe I don’t fully understand it. Clips is another way Netflix presents new content to subscribers who are easily distracted. You see, Netflix’s business is only partly creating and delivering pre-packaged, live content to its customers. The other party supports its estimated annual spending on content creation of $20 billion. And this is achieved by keeping subscribers and possibly selling them to higher subscription levels where they can, for example, remove ads.
But Clips, which appears as a “play” icon in a box next to Home in the Netflix mobile app, could also be about something else.
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But first, what is Clips and how does it work?
Understanding Netflix clips
As I mentioned, if you have the Netflix mobile app, the new feature should appear as part of the relatively leftover Netflix mobile experience. On my iPhone 17 Pro Max, I discovered it right after logging into my account.
While the Netflix app’s home screen features options like “Shows,” “Movies,” “Podcasts,” and “Categories” at the top, there are only four menu options at the bottom: “Home,” “Clips,” the new AI-powered “Search,” and “My Netflix,” where you can find and switch accounts.
Like most vertical scrolling video apps, Clips is an experience that focuses on videos in portrait mode. However, instead of user-generated clips of people dancing, lip-syncing, refinishing old furniture, or throwing away AI debris, each video is a clip of Netflix content. My feed, as it stands, was an eclectic mix of shows and movies I’d seen before (and some I hadn’t). On my first viewing, I got two minute clips of Frankenstein, One Piece, Animal, Something About Mary, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Too Hot to Handle, The Diplomats, The Sea Beast and more.
Each clip includes the title, subcategories, such as “Bollywood”, Rousing”, “Revenge”, and a brief description. There are no comments or likes. There is also no rhyme or reason to the mix that I can discern, but they are often choice moments or behind-the-scenes segments. one piece The clip, for example, was a video of the castmates reacting to a scene, and frankenstein It was from director Guillermo del Toro talking about Mia Goth’s performance, which was interspersed with clips from the film.
Clips lacks most of the controls you might find on a proper social media video platform. Unfortunately, I was unable to pause, rewind, or fast forward any of the videos. A tap on the screen just mutes the clip (subtitles appear automatically). There’s a big plus sign so you can add any content to your Lists and then the show appears in your List in the Netflix account section.
You can share the clip, but it doesn’t do what you think. Instead of sharing the vertical video, basically share an ad for the show on your favorite social networks.
Of course, you can also select the circular image of the content to go directly to the main Netflix playback window.
The first step in a vertical series work.
Overall, it’s a pretty disappointing experience, except for the fact that scrolling vertically through these clips is a bit addictive. It’s like video popcorn or Pringles chips (“I can’t eat just one”). You’re eating the best parts of some of these shows and enjoying those 2-minute sensations. There is no commitment and the videos are basically spoiler-free, but they somehow connect you to the content. It can be hard to stop looking and looking
I imagine that, on some level, Clips is a test balloon for exclusive vertical video content.
Remember Quibi, the vertical video content destination that was clearly ahead of its time? Launching a video streaming service, especially one that went against content consumption norms at the time, was risky and unfortunate. Now, however, vertical video series are all the rage on TikTok.
Surely Netflix, which has a huge subscriber base of at least 325 million, sees some opportunity in vertical video content. The telemetry you collect from this Clips feature could be enough to tell you if you could start creating custom 2-minute dramatic content to engage mobile users in a whole new way and prevent TikTok creators from encroaching on your market space.
That may not happen. Netflix could keep introducing 2-minute video clips into Clips in the hopes of hooking subscribers with another series or movie to enjoy, but that seems shortsighted to me. This hold of the toes in vertical space is too valuable to let go.
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