- Netflix introduces Clips
- It is a vertical video clip for its own content
- Control and sharing are marginal, but there may be another play here
Netflix Clips is a strange thing. It appeared on the streaming service’s mobile app on Monday, producing what may be the platform’s first-ever vertically scrolling content feed. I just don’t know why it exists.
Beat it. I know it well, but may not fully understand. Clips are another way for Netflix to introduce easily distracted subscribers to new content. You see, Netflix’s business is only partly to create and deliver pre-packaged and live content to its customers. The second part supports its annual estimated $20 billion in content creation spending. And you do this by keeping subscribers and possibly upselling them to higher subscription levels, where they can, for example, do away with ads.
But Clips, which appears as a boxed “play” icon right next to Home in the Netflix mobile app, may also be about something more.
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But first, what is Clips and how does it work?
Understand Netflix clips
As I mentioned, if you have the Netflix mobile app, the new feature should just appear as part of Netflix’s relatively sparse mobile experience. On my iPhone 17 Pro Max, I discovered it right after logging into my account.
While the Netflix app’s home screen has options like “Shows,” “Movies,” “Podcasts,” and “Categories” at the top, there are only four menu options at the bottom: “Home,” “Clips,” the new AI-infused “Search,” and “My Netflix,” where you find and switch accounts.
Like most vertically scrolling video apps, Clips is an experience that focuses on video in portrait mode. But instead of user-generated clips of people dancing, lip-syncing, restoring old furniture, or dumping AI slop, every single video is a Netflix content clip. My feed, as it is, was an eclectic mix of shows and movies I’ve seen before (and some I haven’t). In my first viewing, I got two minutes of clips Frankenstein, One Piece, Animal, Something About Mary, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Too Hot to Handle, The Diplomats, The Sea Beast and more.
Each clip includes the title, subcategories such as “Bollywood”, Rousing”, “Revenge”, and a brief description. There are no comments or even likes. There is also no rhyme or reason to the mix that I can discern, but they are often selected moments or behind-the-scenes segments. One Piece clip, for example, was a video of the cast reacting to a scene, and Frankenstein was by director Guillermo del Toro talking about Mia Goth’s performance, which was interspersed with pieces from the film.
Clips lacks most of the controls you’d find on a proper social media video platform. I was frustratingly unable to pause, rewind or fast forward any of the videos. A tap on the screen only mutes the clip (subtitles appear automatically). There is a big plus sign so you can add any of the content to your lists and then the show will appear on your list in the Netflix account section.
You can share the clip, but it doesn’t do what you think it does. Instead of sharing the vertical video, it basically shares an ad for the show on your favorite social media.
Of course, you can also select the circular image of the content to go directly to the main Netflix playback window.
The first step in a vertical series game
Overall, it’s a pretty underwhelming experience, except for the fact that vertically scrolling through these clips is a bit addictive. It’s like video popcorn or Pringles chips (“Can’t eat just one”). You snack on the best of some of these shows and get that 2 minute feeling. There’s no obligation, and the videos are basically spoiler-free, but they still somehow connect you to the content. It can be hard to stop flicking and watching
I would imagine that Clips is on some level a trial balloon for purely vertical video content.
Remember Quibi, the vertical video content destination that was clearly ahead of its time? Launching a video streaming service, especially one that flew in the face of content consumption norms at the time, was risky and ill-fated. But now vertical video series are all the rage on TikTok.
Netflix, which has a massive subscriber base of at least 325 million, certainly sees some opportunity in vertical video content. The telemetry it collects from this Clips feature could be enough to tell it if it could start creating tailored 2-minute long dramatic content to capture mobile users in a whole new way – and prevent TikTok creators from encroaching on its marketplace.
It might not happen. Netflix could just keep loading 2-minute bits of video into Clips in hopes of hooking subscribers to another bingeable series or movie, but that seems short-sighted to me. This toe hold in vertical space is too valuable to let go.
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