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The vertical video feed is coming to the Netflix app. The streaming service announced Tuesday that in the coming weeks it will pilot the new feature, which it will populate with short-form clips of movies and shows tailored to the end-user’s viewing habits. Netflix users will be able to swipe through the feed to watch, save, or share content with friends, just like Tiktok. Yep the user interface that took over social media is making its way into streamingbut most importantly for Netflix, it’s a play for improving its own content discovery engine. “We know that swiping through a vertical feed on social media apps is an easy way to browse video content, and we also know that our members love to browse our clips and trailers to find their next obsession, so in the coming weeks well be testing a vertical feed filled with clips of Netflix shows and movies to make discovery easy and fun,” Netflix’s chief product officer Eunice Kim said during a virtual presentation. [Image: Netflix] During this mobile-only test, the vertical video feed won’t be available to every single member, Netflix tells Fast Company, but those who get it will see recommendations personalized to them, with feature clips from their top picks for you. Netflix previously tried vertical-video feeds in 2021 with two themed apps, Fast Laughs for comedy clips and Kids Clips for clips from its children’s programming, but it’s forthcoming in-app pilot expands on that concept across the streamer’s library. The announcement was one of a number of design changes Netflix announced Tuesday, including a new My Netflix tab with listed content, reminders for upcoming shows, and a continue watching feed, as well as a homepage designed to show more information at a glance, including callouts like “New Episode,” “Recently Added,” “Oscar Winner,” and “We think you’ll love this” that appear with their own emoji-style icons next to shows. The company is also considering expanding into video podcasts. But it’s the vertical video feed that seems aimed at killing two birds with one stone. [Image: Netflix] Netflix head of design Steve Johnson told Fast Company last year that the two things that keep him up at night are discovery and competition for viewing time from a generation that spends a majority of its viewing hours on mobile devices. By piloting its own short-form, vertical video feed, Netflix is trying to both improve discovery and carve out more viewing time on its app with a swiping experience borrowed from social media. Already, TikTok’s social media competitors like Instagram have made design changes that mirror its vertical video layout, and that trend is now creeping into other app categories. (Tubi launched its own TikTok-ified discovery format, called “Scenes,” last fall.) As TikTok became more popular, full-length, professionally shot shows had to compete with more and more short-form video content, and even with amateur, recorded snippets of their own IP popping up in social feeds. Now, Netflix is trying to meet viewers where they are, with a few potential benefits. By offering viewers shareable clips of its own shows, Netflix has a say in how its content appears on other platforms, while still taking advantage of the soft marketing of user-generated fandom. And if cutting up its shows into bite-size videos and organizing them in a format familiar to social media natives provides Netflix a better discovery funnel for new shows, the format could soon find other closed platform imitators.
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E-Commerce
CrowdStrike reiterated its fiscal 2026 first quarter and annual forecasts on Wednesday and announced a plan to cut about 500 roles, roughly 5% of its workforce, to streamline operations and reduce costs. The cybersecurity company will incur about $36 million to $53 million in charges related to the layoffs, of which about $7 million will be recognized in the first quarter ended April 30, it said in a regulatory filing. Austin, Texas-based CrowdStrike said the rest of the charges will be seen in the second quarter. The charges primarily consist of future cash expenditure related to severance payments, employee benefits, and related costs. The company’s shares were down nearly 4% in morning trading. CrowdStrike had 10,118 full-time employees as of January 31, according to its annual report. “While we will continue to prudently hire, primarily in customer-facing and product engineering roles, we are reducing roles in some areas of the business,” CEO George Kurtz said in a note to the company’s employees. Cybersecurity remains a priority for businesses and governments at a time when high-profile hacking incidents have hit companies such as Microsoft, UnitedHealth Group and Walt Disney. Analysts have said CrowdStrike’s prompt handling of the Windows outage last year, which disrupted internet services globally, helped the company maintain customer trust. CrowdStrike reiterated its full-year 2026 revenue forecast to be between $4.74 billion and $4.81 billion and reaffirmed its annual adjusted profit-per-share estimate of $3.33 to $3.45. The company’s forecast for first-quarter revenue was between $1.10 billion and $1.11 billion. “This will likely spark debate on if this announcement is coming from a place of weakness or strengthto which we broadly believe it is the latter,” multinational financial services company Piper Sandler said in a note. CrowdStrike will release financial results for its first quarter on June 3. Jaspreet Singh, Reuters
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E-Commerce
The latest TikTok trend is leading to fire evacuations at schools across Connecticut. As part of the trend, students are filming themselves inserting items such as pencils, paper clips, and pushpins into the charging ports of their school Chromebooks to set them on fire. Why? For a laugh and a brief break from schoolwork. One such tutorial gained 1.5 million views on TikTok before being removed, showing a student pushing a lead pencil into the back left corner of the port. You might have to wiggle it a bit, the user explained. Another student tried to film a how-to video last week, managing to cause a laptop fire and triggering an evacuation at Newington High School, as reported by WDBJ7. Since Monday, both Derby High School and Cromwell High School have experienced similar incidents. On Thursday, I was alerted by both my director of security and high school principal that we had a Chromebook that was smoking, Maureen Brummett, superintendent of Newington Public Schools, told NBC Connecticut. She further explained that after an investigation, it was clear that the damage to the laptop was “done intentionally” rather than being a result of a malfunction, and that students would be held accountable for replacing the school equipment. Chromebooks are expensive and theyre going up in price, so when a student does intentionally destroy a Chromebook, its their responsibility to replace it. We have an insurance program, but its not covering intentional damage, she added. DJ Zordon, a Newington fire marshal, described arriving at the scene to find a room filled with smoke. We did see video from students . . . and thats one of the biggest things. The batteries that are essentially catching on fire, once they burn, theyre producing this toxic smoke, Zordon told NBC Connecticut. For those thinking about participating in the trend, the consequences go beyond just a damaged Chromebook. The school has to be evacuated, firefighters respond to the firehouse and subsequently to the scene, and it takes resources away from any other emergencies that might be happening at that time,” Zordon added. While no injuries have been reported, when batteries like those in laptops catch fire, there is a risk of explosion, which could lead to burns or injury from flying shrapnel. Investigations are ongoing across the schools, and warnings have been issued to students and their families. Maybe this is one trend to skip.
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E-Commerce
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