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Google adds a universal watchlist for movies and TV to Google Search
Google is adding a new feature to Search that will help you keep track of all the TV shows and movies you want to watch during these long weeks at home. The company had already been offering personalized TV and movie recommendations in Search, as of an update released last fall. Building out a watchlist with your top picks is the obvious next step.
To get started, mobile users can first search “what to watch” to get Google’s suggestions. They are organized at the top of the search results, and can be filtered by type (show or movie), by whether the content is free, by category (comedy, action, documentary, sitcom, kid-friendly, etc.) and by provider. Google also offers a rating experience where you train its algorithms on what sort of content you like and dislike.
For any movie or show you want to then add to your list, you just tap “Watchlist” in the preview window. You can also tap “Watched” if it’s something you’ve already seen.
The new Watchlist is available as a second tab at the top of this What to watch section, and can be accessed any time you’re searching for something to buy, rent or stream. You can also search for “my watchlist” on Google or tap on “Collections” from within the Google app to access your list more quickly.
At launch, Google had said the TV and movies feature was designed to further the company’s larger goal of helping connect people with the information they need — it was not offering the data to advertisers. But by placing a regularly used feature like this within Google, users will spend more time on Google’s platform, which helps Google’s business.
While Google’s version of the watchlist concept is handy for more casual users, a number of dedicated mobile apps offer an expanded experience and, at times, more accurate and more granular recommendations. For example, TV Time not just makes recommendations, but also lets you check off which episodes you’ve watched from a series and participate in a mobile forum of sorts with other fans. Reelgood, Watchworthy, Taste, Bingeworthy, Likewise, itcher, Hai and many other apps also offer show and movie suggestions to varying degrees of success.
Reelgood even recently launched a feature called Reelgood Remote, which will instantly play the content you choose on your Roku device.
Google’s new Watchlist feature was one of several additions rolling out today focused on entertainment.
On Android TV devices, it also added three new home screen rows from YouTube, including COVID-19 News, Stay Home #WithMe and free movies from YouTube. Android TV also gained more collections from Google Play, while streaming apps are now organized under a row titled “Stream the shows and movies you love.”
Plus, on Google Play, the company has recently introduced a collection of special deals, including offers on apps for movies, TV and comics, among other things. There are offers for game streaming service Google Stadia and subscription service Google Play Pass, as well.
The Google Watchlist feature is live now on mobile devices.
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Google’s new feature will help you find something to watch
Google Search can now help you find your next binge. The company this morning announced a new feature that will make personalized recommendations of what to watch, including both TV shows and movies, and point you to services where the content is available.
The feature is an expansion of Google’s existing efforts in pointing web searchers to informative content about TV shows and films.
Already, a Google search for a TV show or movie title will include a “Knowledge Panel” box at the the top of the search results where you can read the overview, see the ratings and reviews, check out the cast and, as of spring 2017, find services where the show or movie can be streamed or purchased.
The new recommendations feature will instead appear to searchers who don’t have a particular title in mind, but are rather typing in queries like “what to watch” or “good shows to watch,” for example. From here, you can tap a Start button in the “Top picks for you” carousel to rate your favorite TV shows and movies in order to help Google better understand your tastes.
You also can select which subscriptions you have access to, in order to customize your recommendations further. This includes subscription services like Netflix, Hulu, HBO GO and HBO NOW, Prime Video, Showtime, Showtime Anytime, CBS All Access and Starz.
You also can indicate if you have a cable TV or satellite subscription. And it will list shows and movies available for rent, purchase or free streaming from online marketplaces like iTunes, Prime Video, Google Play Movies & TV and Vudu, plus network apps like ABC, Freeform, Lifetime, CBS, Comedy Central, A&E and History.
To get started, you’ll use a Tinder-like swiping mechanism to rate titles. Right swipes indicate a “like” and left swipes indicate a “dislike.” You can “skip” titles you don’t know or have an opinion on.
After giving Google some starter data about your interests, future searches for things to watch will offer recommendations tailored to you.
The company tells TechCrunch this information is only being used for the purpose of recommendations — it’s not being offered to advertisers. Instead, it’s about Google’s larger goal in helping people find the information they need.
The company notes that you can even get specific with your requests, by asking for things like “horror movies from the 80s” or “adventure documentaries about climbing.” (This will help, too, when you can’t remember a movie’s title but do know what it’s about.)
Google’s search results will return a list of suggestions, and when you pick one you want to watch, the service will — as before — let you know where it’s available.
The company already has a good understanding of consumer interest in movies and TV thanks to its data on popular searches. Now it aims to have a good understanding of what individual users may want to watch, as well.
The new recommendations feature is live today on mobile for users in the U.S.
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Wattpad’s latest deal will turn its stories into TV shows and movies in Korea
Wattpad’s ambitions to grow beyond a storytelling community for young adults took another leap forward today with the announcement of a new partnership that will help expand its reach in Asia. The company has teamed up with Huayi Brothers in Korea, which will now be Wattpad’s exclusive entertainment partner in the region. The two companies will co-produce content sourced from Wattpad’s community as it’s adapted for film, TV and other digital media projects in the country.
Development deals like this are not new to Wattpad at this point.
In the U.S., the storytelling app made headlines for bringing to Netflix the teen hit “The Kissing Booth,” which shot up to become the No. 4 movie on IMDb for a time.
Wattpad also recently announced a second season for “Light as a Feather,” which it produces with AwesomenessTV and Grammnet for Hulu.
It additionally works with eOne, Sony, SYFY, Universal Cable Productions (a division of NBCUniversal) and Germany’s Bavaria Fiction.
Outside the U.S., Wattpad has 26 films in development with iflix in Indonesia.
And WattPad’s feature film “After,” based on Anna Todd’s novel, will arrive in theaters on April 12.
Key to these deals is Wattpad’s ability to source the best content from the 565 million stories on its platform. Do to so, it uses something it calls its “Story DNA Machine Learning technology,” which helps to deconstruct stories by analyzing things like sentence structure, word use, grammar and more in order to help identify the next big hits using more than just readership numbers alone.
The stories it identifies as promising are then sent over to content specialists (aka human editors) for further review.
This same combination of tech and human curation has been used in the past to help source its writing award winners and is now being used to find the next stories to be turned into novels for its new U.S. publishing arm, Wattpad Books.
In addition to its hit-finding technology, studios working with Wattpad also have a way to reach younger users who today are often out of touch with traditional media, as much of youth culture has shifted online.
These days, teens and young adults are more likely to know YouTube stars than Hollywood actors. They’re consuming content online in communities like Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and elsewhere. And when it comes to reading, they’re doing more of that online, too — whether that’s through chat fiction apps like Hooked or by reading Wattpad’s longer stories.
Wattpad says it now has 70 million users worldwide, who now spend 22 billion combined minutes per month engaged with its website and app.
With the Korean deal, Wattpad is further growing its international footprint after several other moves focused on its international expansions.
For example, today’s news follows Wattpad’s raise of $51 million in funding from Tencent; its appointment of its first Head of Asia for Wattpad Studios, Dexter Ong, last year; and its hiring of its first GM of India, Devashish Sharma, who is working with local partners to turn its stories into movies, TV, digital and print in the region.
Huayi Brothers Korea hasn’t announced any specific projects from the Wattpad deal at this point, but those will follow.
“Wattpad’s model is the future of entertainment, using technology to find great storytellers and bring them to an international audience,” said, Jay Ji, CEO, Huayi Brothers Korea, in a statement. “In an era of entertainment abundance, working with Wattpad means access to the most important things in the industry: a data-backed approach to development, and powerful, proven stories that audiences have already fall in love with,” he said.
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Google rolls out a better way to search for movies
Google is rolling out a new feature today that will help you better plan your night at the movies. While the company has supported displaying movie showtimes within Google Search results following the closure of its standalone movie site in 2016, this update will help you narrow down your options more efficiently, thanks to the additions of drop-down filters in the Movies Showtimes interface that appears at the top of Google’s search results.
After you perform a search for “showtimes” and are directed to Google’s Movies Showtimes screen as usual, you’ll notice a new set of drop-down filters at the top.
You can use these to filter the movies near you by a number of factors, including screen type (e.g. 3D or IMAX), the movie’s genre, ratings, the critic scores, language, and preferred chains. That way you could click a few buttons to do a very specific search for something like “Family” movies rated “PG” or “G” at Cobb or AMC theaters in the afternoon on Sunday, for example. Or “R” rated “Dramas” with a critics’ score of 70% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Critics’ Score filter supports reviews from Metacritic and IMDb, as well.
Once the filters are applied, you’ll be shown all the matching results that meet your exact criteria. When you’re ready to go, you can then click on the showtime you want to purchase your ticket using Fandango, MovieTickets.com, Atom Tickets, or the theaters directly. (Those supported on Google include AMC, Regal, Cinemark, and others.)
In addition to the showtime search filters, you can also now tap over to the “Theaters” tab to see what’s playing at your favorite theaters, that also matches your requirements.
Google says the update is rolling out to the Google Search app on Android in the U.S. and India in Hindi and English, as well as in mobile search in the browser, and soon, the Google Search app for iOS.
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Google Play Movies & TV becomes a one-stop shop for nearly everything that streams
With the explosion of streaming services now available, it’s becoming more difficult to figure out not just what movie or TV show to watch next, but where you can actually watch it. Google today is rolling out its solution to this problem with a significant revamp of its Google Play Movies & TV app and an update to the Google Play Store itself that will show you which streaming services have the content available, in addition to whether it’s available for rent or purchase, as before.
The end result is something that’s similar to Apple’s own TV app, which combines users’ own library of movies and TV with the ability to seek out what’s trending and available in the world of online video.
In the updated Google Play Movies & TV app, you’ll now find three tabs in the new bottom navigation bar which will direct you to your Home, Library or your Watchlist. The watchlist is a feature the app recently gained as well, but now it has a much more prominent position.
As you browse through the app, you can click on titles to read more about them, as before, but now you’re also able to see where the item can be streamed.
At launch, Google is working with 28 streaming services whose content libraries are now integrated in Google Play Movies & TV. That’s fewer than Apple’s TV app supports, which is currently over 60.
But it will find content even if it’s an exclusive to the streaming provider, and not necessarily something Google has for rent or sale. That means you can find original programming – like Amazon’s “The Man in the High Castle” – and then start watching it on the streaming service that hosts it.
“We deeplink right into playback for that [third-party streaming] app,” explains Ben Serridge, the product manager for the Movies & TV app at Google. “So if I wanted to start watching ‘The Good Doctor’ pilot, I press the play button and it goes into the ABC app and start playback.”
Beyond the big names, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video, the app also pulls in content from ABC, CBS, FOX NOW, NBC, HBO NOW, HBO Go, Showtime, Showtime Anytime, Max Go, Starz, Disney Now, HGTV, BET Now, Comedy Central, A&E, Cooking Channel, Crackle, DIY Network, Food Network, History, Lifetime, MTV, The CW, Travel Channel, Tubi TV and VH1.
Notably missing is Netflix, whose content is searchable in Apple’s TV app.
Serridge didn’t comment on why it’s missing, saying only that “we would very much like to have all the apps that distribute this kind of content on Play participating” – effectively tossing the ball back to Netflix’s court.
Even without Netflix, the feature is useful if not comprehensive. It will show you the services hosting the content, whether it’s freely available to stream, if you need a subscription (as with HBO Now), the associated costs, or if you need to login with pay TV credentials to watch.
This is especially helpful because some of the network TV apps offer a teaser of a show with a few free episodes, but not complete seasons. The Google Play Movies & TV app will help you track down the rest elsewhere, if need be.
The app will also now help you narrow down searches thanks to a robust filtering system that lets you click on tags by genre, mood, decade, and more. For example, you could click on “Family,” “Drama,” Award winning,” Highly rated,” Comedy,” and other filters.
In addition to helping you find content, stream it, or add it to your Watchlist, the app includes personalized recommendations. These will be partly based on items you’ve previously watched, but you can also explicitly signal your interest or distaste as well, by clicking on the thumbs up or thumbs down button. The thumbs down will remove the item from your suggestions entirely.
Outside the app itself, the Play Store is being updated to show you the same information about content availability.
Solutions like the new Google Play Movies & TV app and Apple’s TV app are handy in the cord cutting era where content is spread out across networks, services, and other over-the-top offerings. But even these apps aren’t enough. Not only is Netflix missing from Google’s app, so is its own YouTube original content – and that’s the same company!
Also not addressed by either Apple or Google’s app are which shows may be available to stream or record via live TV services like YouTube TV, Hulu Live TV, PlayStation Vue, DirecTV Now, and Sling TV. (Although, to be fair, that’s not only a different set of services, it’s also a much larger challenge given that broadcast network availability varies by market. A dedicated solution like Suppose.tv or Fomopop’s live TV finder may work better.)
Meanwhile, there are other tools for finding and tracking favorite shows, like Reelgood or TV Time (or a jailbroken Fire TV stick we should admit), but they don’t have the benefit of matching content from a rent-and-buy marketplace like Google Play, or being available across phone, tablet, and desktop web, like Google Play.
Google says the new features will roll out to Android phones and tablets in the U.S. over the next few days.
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Atom Tickets raises $60M Series C for its movie booking app
Atom Tickets, an app that combines online movie ticket booking with social features, said today that it has raised a $60 million Series C led by Fidelity Investments, with participation from returning investors Lionsgate, Disney and Twentieth Century Fox Film. All three studios contributed to Atom Tickets’ $50 million Series B, which was announced two years ago. Read More
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MoviePass drops pricing to under $7 per month, if you opt for the annual plan
MoviePass, the subscription service that lets consumers pay a monthly fee to see unlimited movies in theaters across the U.S., is slashing its prices yet again. The company announced today it’s now offering its service for $6.95 per month, down from the current price of $9.95 per month, when customers commit to a one-year subscription plan. That works out to a flat fee of $89.95… Read More
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Fandango is acquiring rival online ticketer MovieTickets.com
A consolidation in the advance movie ticketing space is happening today, with Fandango’s announcement that it’s acquiring rival MovieTickets.com for an undisclosed sum. The deal, which is expected to close before year-end, will help Fandango expand its international footprint, particularly in Latin America, as well as bring new cinemas to its ticketing platform. Read More
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Free streaming service Tubi TV grabs $20 million in new funding
San Francisco-based Tubi TV has raised an additional $20 million for its advertising-supported streaming service for TV and movies. Investors in the round are betting on the fact that the next big streaming competitor won’t be a direct rival to Netflix and others with a subscription-based business model, but rather a free service that offers a wide variety of titles for free viewing. Read More
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Reelgood debuts a hub for finding TV shows and movies across streaming services
More people are cutting the cord with pay TV in favor of streaming services, but finding something to watch is growing more difficult – not only because of rights deals which see content coming and going, but also because there’s now a wider array of services to choose from. A startup called Reelgood wants to help, and is today launching a centralized platform for web users,… Read More
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