If you use Netflix, you know how great it is… but it’s missing a very important element – social networking. If Netflix would just add the ability to build a “friends” list, then allow users to “suggest” videos to those friends, they could generate a lot more interaction of their service.
Friends list
Just like other social networking sites, allow users to search for friends by email address or username. Once the request is sent, the user on the other side can accept or ignore the request. The accepted requests are then added to the list. Since this list shouldn’t be ‘huge’, there doesn’t even need to be multiple lists. This is just a list of people you might share video recommendations with – not everyone you know on the planet Earth.
When a user accepts a request, the requestor is automatically added to the user’s list. This makes it easy to manage friends – much like Facebook.
Suggestions
When a user watches a video, or has rated it (one or the other must be true), a clickable icon would display the user’s friend list in alphabetical order. Selecting a name on the list pops up a dialog saying “Are you sure you want to suggest this video to <username>?“ Yes / No.
The “Suggestions For You” top-navigation item can display friend’s suggestions.
