How Netflix Uses Big Data To Create Content
Netflix collects an enormous amount of data on its users and their actions, and uses that data in ways never before used in the entertainment industry to decide what content to produce. The numbers are staggering: Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 57 million members in nearly 50 countries enjoying more than two billion hours of TV shows and movies per month.
Netflix collects an enormous amount of data on its users and their actions, and uses that data in ways never before used in the entertainment industry to decide what content to produce.
The numbers are staggering: Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 57 million members in nearly 50 countries enjoying more than two billion hours of TV shows and movies per month.
Netflix looks at data generated from over 40 million “plays” a day. It keeps a record of every time subscribers pause the action, rewind, or fast-forward. They track how many subscribers abandon a show entirely after watching for a few minutes. In addition they track the time of day when shows are watched, and on what devices they are watched on.
Netflix user account data provides verified personal information (sex, age, location), as well as preferences (viewing history, bookmarks, Facebook likes).
Having this wealth of detailed knowledge of Netflix subscribers, what they watch, and how they watch it allowed the company take the next step of creating content, but do it using intelligent data driven decisions.
The data collected by Netflix indicated there was a strong interest for a remake of the BBC miniseries House of Cards. These viewers also enjoyed movies by Kevin Spacey, and those directed by David Fincher.
Netflix determined that the overlap of these three areas would make House of Cards a successful entry into original programming.
The result: House of Cards is the most streamed piece of content in the United States and 40 other countries, according to Netflix. It is rated 9.1/10 from 180,816 users at IMDB.
In any business, the ability to accurately predict what products or services will succeed is of paramount importance and value.
What is next? Correlating the raw numbers of Kevin Spacey fans who also like David Fincher and have a fondness for British political dramas is just the beginning. Netflix’s deep dimensions of data about what you are watching can be used to judge specific aspects of content as well. Senior data scientist Mohammad Sabah reported at a Hadoop Summit conference in 2012 that Netflix was capturing specific screen shots to analyze in-the-moment viewing habits, and that the company was “looking to take into account other characteristics” as well. What could those characteristics be? GigaOm’s report of the Sabah presentation speculated that “it could make a lot of sense to consider things such as volume, colors and scenery that might give valuable signals about what viewers like.”
In the next post I will explore how Netflix uses Data Visualization to make Intelligent Design Decisions.
REFERENCES: http://techblog.netflix.com/
