An interview with The New York Times about 'Watching' their new TV recommendations site
The New York Times has assembled an impressive team called NYT Beta that has launched popular products like NYT Now, a curated news app built for the Twitter generation.
New York Times' "Watching" Site
Their latest launched is called "Watching," a TV and film recommendations site. The platform (which currently has a waitlist for its beta) has been described by the media company as follows:
There are more TV shows and movies to watch than ever before, and more platforms — both big and small — through which to watch them. Led by television editor Gilbert Cruz and Mehdi Sanoh, product director for NYT Beta, Watching serves as a guide to the movies and TV shows worth, well, watching. Through a combination of short, entertaining recommendations and a guided discovery experience, Watching provides users with the ability to quickly find, save and refer back to the shows and movies that are right for them. It also provides essential information on which streaming services and VOD platforms offer series or films, basic information that is still difficult to find.
Found Remote interviewed Mehdi Sanoh the Director of Product for Beta at The New York Times about Watching.
Found Remote: Why is NYT launching this?
Mehdi Sanoh: With Watching, we’re continuing our mission of helping our readers live fuller, more culturally-rich lives. With the sheer amount of film and TV content being produced today and the multiplicity of platforms to access it, we saw an opportunity to solve a common reader problem: what should I watch next? We decided to leverage our film and TV expertise and build tools that fill a gap and help people plan their screen time. Our ultimate goal is to provide a service that readers will enjoy coming back to.
FR: How has the success of NYT Now, etc. led to this?
MS: While the news report remains at the core of The Times’s coverage and mission, Beta has identified a number of areas where we believe our journalists can help guide our readers. Through NYT Now, but also Cooking and Real Estate, other products developed in Beta, we have learned how to successfully launch great solutions to these reader problems. We have interdisciplinary teams on every product that work day in and out to identify the content and product features that can help our readers the most. We apply agile development principles by constantly looking for the quickest way to validate our assumptions and make the best ideas come to life. We apply all these learnings in how we think of Watching and its roadmap.
FR: What will the main features be?
MS: The recommendation is Watching’s atomic unit of content and the key to how we plan to enhance our readers lives.They are short posts on trending TV Shows and movies that outline why they are interesting. Watching also features recommendation pages that tell you why we think you should watch something but also where to watch it, basic information that is hard to find. There is a discovery engine that lets you navigate through our recommendations based on your interests. You can save titles that you're interested in so that you can remember them when you need them most. During the beta period we are adding features regularly as readers tell us what they would like to see and how the site could be even more helpful, so features will continue to change and improve.
FR: Why should TV lovers use this?
MS: We shouldn’t underestimate the pain that film and TV enthusiasts feel in navigating today’s complex TV landscape. We hear it every day from our readers. Watching is here to help alleviate some of it by ensuring our readers don't miss out on titles everyone is talking about. We want to help them make the most of the services and channels they have access to. When they just need something good to watch, they can explore Watching’s catalog of recommendations where we aim to help them decide if a recommendation is for them. Finally, for readers who want to know everything about their favorite shows, we point readers towards the best stories, whether they are on NYTimes.com or elsewhere.
FR: How long did it take to build?
MS: We have been in building mode since the beginning of the year, however we have spent more than a year speaking to readers and examining the landscape to understand what they value and how we can help. This is a never-ending process as new readers tell us new things about their needs and wishes every day and we plan to iterate on the product continuously moving forward.
Update: NYT Now is no more.
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