Following its $40 million fundraise at the beginning of this year, streaming media company Plex announced on Wednesday it’s rolling out a new TV show and movie reviews feature, putting its app in more direct competition with other apps, like Letterboxd and TV Time. The feature will also include social networking elements, as the reviews can be shared with your friends on Plex and even friends of friends.
The company moved into the social networking space last year with the launch of a new “Discover Together” feature that allowed users to create profiles on the app, and find and follow friends in order to discover news movies and shows together. With Discover Together, users could share what they’re watching with friends, what they’re bookmarking, and what they’ve rated the content. This latest release of movie and TV show reviews builds on that existing framework, making Plex not just a streaming hub, but also a streaming community.
Plex says that, initially, users’ reviews will only be shared within their network of friends and their friends, but it’s working on an update that will allow users to share their ratings and reviews with anyone on the service. The company says it’s seeking beta testers for this feature now.
To access the new feature, users will need a verified email address to get started, but can then create their reviews from either the web interface or the mobile apps. To review items from the Personal Media library, users will need to enable a Sync Watch State & Ratings feature, Plex notes. Reviews will need to abide by Plex’s existing Community Guidelines, as well.
In addition, Plex users will be able to control which reviews they’ll see when on movie and show detail pages by accessing a new “Ratings and Reviews” option under Account settings. From here, users can choose to see reviews from Plex users and critics, users only, critics only, or from no one. (Meanwhile, users can control who sees their reviews by choosing between Private, Friends — which is the default — and Friends of Friends).
Plex users’ existing privacy settings will be preserved, as well — an area that Plex had earlier run into problems with due to how Discover Together was an opt-out, not opt-in experience, leading to users leaking their embarrassing viewing habits to friends and family.