Plex Adds Layer of Social Network and Discovery

Plex is adding profiles and friend finding to its service to try and deliver on aim of being a platform for bringing people and entertainment together. Previously the app has been a useful way to watch free streaming services and organise your own personal home library of digital content, whether movies, TV shows or music.  

The new feature called ‘Discover Together’ is being rolled out to all users after being beta tested in the summer. The updates adds profile and friend finding capabilities to the app. You can see what your friends are watching, what content is being highly reviewed, and what content is trending across the app and with your friends. The end goal is to create online communities around entertainment that share recommendations and engage in conversations. 

You can find your real life friends on the app who are also signed up, but also search for new friends via interests or location. With an activity tab, you will be able to see what your friends have been watching and recommending. You can also hide some of your activity if you would like on your own profile, should you not wish to share all your TV watching habits should you not want to. 

In a Press release, Plex CEO said: 

“Really good discovery has to have a social component, and we believe it needs to be integrated directly into the streaming experience to be useful. Viewers are more likely to watch recommendations from people they know and trust, and to integrate that into the viewing experience is surprisingly something that has not been done before. At Plex, we are focused on bringing viewers the simplest, most efficient, and most enjoyable way to discover great new content they’ll love. Discover Together is a huge milestone for us in this quest, but it will only get better and better from here.” 

A lot of friend finding apps are built around matching people with the same interest, and obviously entertainment can be a big part of that. Plex joins the list of platforms and apps, like Letterboxd and Good Reads that are putting the interest / hobby at the hub of its platform and building out friend finding and social networking from there, rather than the other way round. Plex’s ability to be the place you watch that content too could give it a competitive advantage in the space.