Yahoo Movies Why Netflix ditched star ratings for 'thumbs up or down'
Netflix has rolled out a new ratings system in a bid to improve discovery for its users. The online streaming service has dropped the old five star rating system for a more simple binary “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” system, promising it’ll help it do “a better job suggesting stories we think you’ll love.”
How it works
Giving a show or film a “thumbs up” should help the service’s algorithm serve up better content or genre recommendations for you in the future, while a “thumbs down” will mean it’ll stop being recommended to you every time you log in. Goodbye Adam Sandler movies.
Your “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” ratings will then be used to calculate a personalised “Match % score” so the higher the percentage, the more likely you’ll enjoy the show or film.
“When people see thumbs, they know that they are used to teach the system about their tastes with the goal of finding more great content,” the company blog reveals. “That’s why when we tested replacing stars with thumbs we saw an astounding 200% increase in ratings activity.”
“For members who have provided star ratings in the past, we will continue to use that information to suggest great content.”
Recently it was revealed that the old 5-star rating system didn’t quite equate to a show or film’s aggregated global score, a la Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer. Rather the ranking system showed what people with similar viewing habits to you had rated the show, so two different users could see entirely different ratings for the same program.
This new system is more simple, cleaner, and should in theory mean you get better recommendations in the future, so it’s a thumbs up from us.
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