Sarah Perez of TechCrunch reports that Netflix tests human-driven curation with launch of ‘Collections’:

“Netflix is testing a new way to help users find TV shows and movies they’ll want to watch with the launch of a “Collections” feature, currently in testing on iOS devices…. According to Netflix, the titles are curated by experts on the company’s creative teams, and are organized into these collections based on factors like genre, tone, story line and character traits.”

A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the test, saying:

“We’re always looking for new ways to connect our fans with titles we think they’ll love, so we’re testing out a new way to curate Netflix titles into collections on the Netflix iOS app.”

My take: This is fascinating because it’s a bit of deja vu all over again. Years ago Netflix bragged that its algorithm would learn from our viewing habits and only recommend movies to us that it calculated we would want to watch. It worked to some extent; my home screen is quite different from my wife’s. However, we both still have to do a lot of scrolling to find something we want to watch. I think brining back curation is an acknowledgement that we all yearn for some degree of commonality. Remember that, before the internet changed everything, the media was a de facto curator, only showing us what they had already selected. I would like to see a blending of curation and algorithmic selection so that I can see what the masses are consuming in Collections, and personalized offbeat suggestions in Recommended for Me.