Netflix revamped its user experience design to make it easier for subscribers to find content, blogged Stephen Garcia, director-product innovation. “Sometimes our members need a little bit of help figuring out where to start,” Garcia said, saying Netflix tested how to make it easier to find titles for TV viewers restricted to a few buttons on a remote control. It’s easier to start browsing with a series or a movie, research showed: Users may not be sure of the exact title they want to watch, but they have a sense of whether they are in the mood for a quick series episode or a longer movie experience, he said. The streaming service also made it easier to access titles members saved for later viewing in the My List section. The update began rolling out Wednesday. The TV search additions are part of a "long line of incremental improvements" designed to enhance Netflix customers' viewing experiences, said Chief Product Officer Greg Peters during the company's quarterly earnings interview Monday (see 1807170002). Peters also referenced improvements Netflix made in its mobile user interface and smart downloads.

Netflix fell short of its Q2 global net subscriber addition targets in what the company’s shareholder letter Monday called a “strong but not stellar” quarter. Total net additions were 5.15 million for Q2, including 670,000 in the U.S. and 4.47 million internationally. Its Q1 letter had forecast 6.2 million global net additions for Q2, including 1.2 million in the U.S. and 5 million internationally. HBO and Disney “are evolving to focus on internet entertainment services,” and Amazon and Apple “are investing in content as part of larger ecosystem subscriptions,” said Netflix of its key competitors. “Each of these firms has unique content and is striving to find the best creators from around the world to entertain its viewers,” it said. “There has never been a better time to be a creator or consumer of content. We believe that consumer appetite for great content is broad and that there is room for multiple parties to have attractive offerings.” With anticipated additional competition from AT&T/Time Warner and from the combined Fox/Disney or Fox/Comcast, “our strategy is to simply keep improving, as we’ve been doing every year in the past,” said Netflix. In after-hours trading, the stock fell 14 percent to $344.49.

U.S. broadband households watch an average two hours of alternative content on a computer each week from sources including Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion, Parks Associates reported Thursday. Almost half watch user-generated content monthly and more than one in 10 watch livestreamed content. About half of TV households watch video from YouTube and similar sites on TVs, said analyst Brett Sappington, and more watch online video from an app such as YouTube than from a TV channel app. Pay-TV adoption is dropping as alternative content consumption increases, and younger respondents are more likely to watch user-generated content, both posing threats to pay TV, the firm said.

Netflix added a layer to its mobile download service called Smart Downloads, which automatically deletes an episode after viewing. It then automatically downloads the next episode of a series, blogged Cameron Johnson, director-product innovation, saying the feature is initially available on Android phones and tablets running the latest version of the Netflix app. The feature turns on only when a user is connected to Wi-Fi, and it can be disabled if a user wants to keep viewed programs, said the company.

In the early hours after major news events, YouTube will start putting short previews of news in its search results that link to the full article in an effort to provide more sources and context, Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan and Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl blogged Monday. They said the Alphabet/Google affiliate will expand testing of features that make it easier to access local news via the YouTube app for TV screens, bringing it to more U.S. markets. Information from third parties such as Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica will start being displayed alongside videos "on a small number of well-established historical and scientific topics that have often been subject to misinformation, like the moon landing and the Oklahoma City Bombing," wrote the two: Initial members of a related working group include Vox Media, Brazilian radio network Jovem Pan and India Today.

The high cost of content that has made traditional pay TV so expensive is now hitting virtual MVPD operators as they are starting to pass along to consumers large increases in programmer fees, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Sunday. Thus virtual MVPDs are only going to help cut the costs of pay TV in the short term and help smooth the transition to what is likely a more direct-to-consumer TV model in the future, he said.

Roon Labs added streaming support for Chromecast devices including Google Home speakers, Chromecast media players and third-party hardware with Chromecast built-in, Roon CEO Enno Vandermeer blogged Friday. Chromecast device owners' product will appear automatically in Roon settings under the audio tab, said Vandermeer, and compatible audio-only devices will play “gapless” high-res music up to 96 kHz/24-bit from Roon. On Chromecast devices with video, Roon displays album artwork, artist photos and track information, he said. Roon supports grouped playback on Chromecast devices via the Google Home app, and users can set up groups using the Google Home app. The update also includes bug fixes and improvements for Sonos playback, AirPlay 2, the Master Quality Authenticated core decoder and Tidal tracks, Vandermeer said.

All Comcast Xfinity Mobile users will see standard-definition video by default on the mobile network, while unlimited-plan users will get slower speeds when tethering, under policy changes. Video will be streamed at 480p by default, “consistent with standard unlimited plans across standards,” though customers may stream HD video over Wi-Fi, a spokesperson emailed Tuesday. Comcast plans to charge extra for 720p resolution later this year; until then, customers may request it for free temporarily, he said. Comcast further explained the video policy change on a support page updated Monday. When using a phone as a hot spot, unlimited-plan users will get 3G speeds, while users paying $12 per gigabyte get 4G speeds, he said. The changes are to keep price down, the spokesperson said. The mobile virtual network operator unlimited plan costs $45 monthly for 20 GB of 4G data.

Streaming cyberlockers -- which allow direct streaming of pirated content and are beginning to dominate video piracy online -- involve a vast ecosystem of web servers and aren't susceptible to many detection methods copyright enforcers use against torrents, Queen Mary University of London said Thursday. A small number of networks, websites and junctions host a disproportionate amount of content, which could point to a possible strategy for copyright enforcers, it said.

Verizon's Go90 streaming video service will discontinue effective July 30, said a notice on the app. In a statement, the company said the discontinuation follows creation of its digital content division, Oath. It said it "will focus on building its digital-first brands at scale in sports, finance, news and entertainment for today's mobile consumers and tomorrow's 5G applications.”