Netflix is about to get user profiles so you and the rest of your family can have separate experiences with the service, with separate recommendations.
Netflix is reportedly showing off the feature at E3, but it’s still in testing. The company reportedly plans to launch the feature by the end of August, and will let accounts have up to six or seven profiles.
Jason Gilbert at Yahoo News spoke with Netflix VP of Product Todd Yellin, and reports:
When you fire up Netflix — and you’ve elected to enable multiple profiles — you’ll be met with a start screen that shows avatars for the different users of your accounts. You click on the avatar of the person that’s using the account, and you’ll be taken into that user profile, with preferences and recommendations unique to that person’s viewing history.
Gilbert also provides this shot:
Despite potentially offering that many profiles, the company will still only allow two users to stream from the same account at the same time. There is no mention of whether different profiles will allow for separate instant queues.
Netflix has actually been testing personalized profiles for a while. GigaOm showed off one version back in early January that looked a little different than what Yahoo is showing now:
When the feature actually rolls out, it could look completely different than either of these, according to Gilbert.