Apparently, this is the only format that matters on mobile.
The HBO Max mobile app now has short-form videos, just like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and all the rest. HBO Max Shorts feature scenes from the company's vast library, but also include trailers and bonus content. These are algorithmically delivered to the user based on their watch history.
This isn't being framed as a way to waste time, but rather as a new option for discovering stuff to watch. Every short video lets users immediately jump into an episode or save a series for later. This is all done via the Shorts icon on the bottom navigation menu. It's currently available for some iOS users in the US, and will soon "be rolled out across more devices and markets."
HBO Max is just the latest streamer to jump in on the short-form video craze. The Netflix app recently made a similar pivot. Maybe the long-dead and regularly-ridiculed short-form video streaming platform Quibi was actually onto something.
The platform is also introducing a "conversational search experience" that lets people use natural language to ask questions about content. You know the drill. It's a chatbot. HBO Max says this can be used to ask for the "best movie for a girls night in" or for a "dysfunctional family drama."
Oddly, the company refrained from using the letters "AI" to describe this feature. Instead, it said "this experience uses natural language understanding and semantic search." I'm old enough to remember when companies crowed about AI all day and night. In any event, this experience is available now for US users on Android. Warner Bros. Discovery says this will "eventually" come to more devices and markets.
