Streaming service Plex has lengthy since grown past its unique focus of being a house for private media to supply a extra complete answer for locating, streaming, and sharing content material throughout providers, together with Plex’s personal ad-supported free TV and films. More not too long ago, the corporate added social networking options, which it’s at this time increasing with its rollout of latest performance. Notably, this features a solution to share your Plex profile publicly and instruments to let others learn your TV and film opinions after which remark in return.
Plex first launched social networking in November 2023 when it launched a function known as “Discover Together,” which allowed customers to create profiles on the service after which discover and comply with associates to see what they had been watching. (The function initially obtained some backlash as some Plex customers had been sad about its opt-out nature. Plex now notes that content material flagged as grownup gained’t seem in customers’ Activity charges, which was one of many customers’ issues.)
While it was a shift for the corporate, providing a extra social expertise on Plex permits it to higher compete not solely with different free, ad-supported streamers but in addition with devoted social networks for film and TV opinions like Letterboxd and TV Time, amongst others.
With at this time’s launch, Plex says customers will now be capable to share a public URL that factors to their profile on the service on watch.plex.television. By default, customers shall be findable by others on Plex by way of the app’s search, except they’ve already turned this off of their settings.
People who view your consumer profile will be capable to see what you’ve been watching, what’s in your Watchlist, and extra. This doesn’t change any of your present privateness settings, Plex notes.
In addition, Plex customers may have the choice to make their Ratings & Reviews seen to different customers on Plex by a brand new setting. Here, you may select between permitting anybody to see these opinions or solely these signed in to Plex. You may also select that your opinions are solely seen to Friends or Friends of Friends, or you may make all of your Ratings & Reviews personal if desired.
Alongside the social networking options, Plex can also be launching a preview of its new consumer interface, initially on Apple TV. The redesign consists of up to date navigation, extra private media customization, simpler function entry, a richer expertise with extra paintings, and Plex’s numerous social networking options, the corporate says in its announcement.
For energy customers, Plex Pass subscribers (paid customers) will acquire entry to HEVC {hardware} encoding for higher video high quality whereas saving bandwidth. This choice was beforehand in preview mode with choose customers however is now accessible to all subscribers.
