- Netflix presents the clips
- These are vertical video clips for its own content
- Control and sharing are marginal but there may be another game here
Netflix Clips is a curious thing. It appeared on the streaming service’s mobile app on Monday and produced what could be the platform’s first-ever vertically scrolling content stream. I just don’t know why this exists.
Hit that. I know, but maybe I don’t completely understand. Clips are yet another way for Netflix to introduce new content to easily distracted subscribers. You see, Netflix’s business is only partly creating and delivering pre-packaged, live content to its customers. The other part supports its estimated annual content creation spending of $20 billion. And you do that by retaining subscribers, and potentially upselling them to higher subscription tiers where they can, for example, remove ads.
But Clips, which appears as a framed “play” icon right next to Home in the Netflix mobile app, could also be about something more.
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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 just appear as part of the relatively simple Netflix mobile experience. On my iPhone 17 Pro Max, I discovered this right after logging into my account.
While the Netflix app’s home screen has options like “Shows,” “Movies,” “Podcasts,” and “Categories” at the top, there are only four menu options at the bottom: “Home,” “Clips,” the new AI-infused “Search,” and “My Netflix,” where you search and switch accounts.
Like most vertical-scrolling video apps, Clips is a portrait mode video-focused experience. However, instead of user-generated clips of people dancing, lip-syncing, restoring old furniture, or throwing AI trash, each video is a clip of Netflix content. My feed, such as it is, was an eclectic mix of shows and movies I’ve already seen (and some I haven’t). On my first viewing, I received two-minute excerpts from 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, like “Bollywood”, Rousing”, “Revenge” and a brief description. There are no comments or even 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. The One piece The clip, for example, was a video of the castmates reacting to a scene, and Frankenstein was of director Guillermo del Toro talking about Mia Goth’s performance, interspersed with clips from the film.
Clips lack many of the controls you might find on a proper social media video platform. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pause, reverse, or fast forward any of the videos. A tap on the screen only cuts 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 on your list in the Netflix account section.
You can share the clip, but it doesn’t do what you think it does. Instead of sharing the vertical video, it basically shares 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 stage of a vertical serial play
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 binge the best bits of some of these shows and get those 2 minute feels. There’s no commitment and the videos are basically spoiler-free, but they still connect you to the content in some way. It can be hard to stop browsing and looking
I could imagine that, on some level, Clips is a trial balloon for pure vertical video content.
Remember Quibi, the vertical video content destination clearly ahead of its time? Launching a video streaming service, especially if it went against the content consumption norms of the time, was risky and unfortunate. But now, vertical video series are all the rage on TikTok.
To be sure, Netflix, which has a massive subscriber base of at least 325 million, sees opportunity in vertical video content. The telemetry it collects from this Clips feature could be enough to tell it if it can start creating tailored, 2-minute dramatic content to attract mobile users in a whole new way – and stop TikTok creators from encroaching on its market space.
This might not happen. Netflix could just keep feeding 2-minute video clips in the hopes of luring subscribers to another bingeable series or movie, but that seems short-sighted to me. This toehold in vertical space is too precious to let go.
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