The streaming platform Plex has evolved significantly from its original purpose of serving as a hub for personal media. It now provides a more extensive platform for discovering, streaming, and sharing a variety of content, including Plex’s complimentary ad-supported TV shows and movies. Recently, the company expanded its features to include social networking capabilities, which it is rolling out as part of its ongoing updates. A key addition allows users to publicly share their Plex profiles, along with tools for others to read and comment on their reviews of movies and TV shows.
Plex first ventured into social networking in November 2023, launching a feature named “Discover Together.” This feature enabled users to create profiles on the platform and connect with friends to see what they were watching. Initially, the rollout faced criticism as several users expressed dissatisfaction with its opt-out nature. Plex has since clarified that content marked as adult will not show up in users’ Activity feeds, addressing one of the main concerns raised.
This strategic move has enabled Plex to enhance its competitive edge, not just against other free, ad-supported platforms but also against specialized social networks focused on movie and TV show reviews, such as Letterboxd and TV Time.
With the latest update, Plex users can now share a public URL leading to their personal profiles on watch.plex.tv. By default, users can be discovered through the app’s search functionality unless they have opted out in their account settings.
Visitors to your profile will gain insight into your viewing habits, your Watchlist, and additional details. Plex assures that this update will not alter any of your current privacy preferences.
Moreover, users will soon have the choice to make their Ratings & Reviews accessible to others on Plex through a new setting. This allows you to determine whether anyone can view your reviews or if only signed-in users can do so. You can also restrict visibility to Friends or Friends of Friends, or choose to keep all your Ratings & Reviews private as desired. (Plex confirmed to TechCrunch that both new and existing users will default to the “Friends” setting.)
In addition to enhancing social networking features, Plex is launching a preview of its redesigned user interface, starting with Apple TV. This revamp will offer improved navigation, greater customization options for personal media, simplified feature access, a more visually engaging experience, and the integration of Plex’s social networking functionalities, as outlined in their announcement.
For advanced users, Plex Pass subscribers will now enjoy access to HEVC hardware encoding, enhancing video quality while also conserving bandwidth. This feature, which was previously in beta with select users, is now accessible to all subscribers.
Compiled by Techarena.au.
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