The streaming service Plex becomes more social with public profiles and reviews

Streaming service Plex has long since grown beyond its original focus on being a home for personal media to offer a more comprehensive solution for discovery, streaming and sharing content across services, including Plex’s own ad supported free TV and movies. Recently, the company added social networking features as it is today expanded with its rollout of new functionality. This especially includes a way to share your Plex profile in public and tools to let others read your TV and movie reviews and then comment in return.

Plex first introduced a social network in November 2023 when it launched a feature called “Discover Together” which allowed users to create profiles on the service and then find and follow friends to see what they saw. (The feature originally got some setback like some Plex users were unhappy about its opt-out character. Plex now notes that content is marked as an adult does not appear in users ‘activity fees, which was one of the users’ concerns.)

Although it was a shift for the company, offering a more social experience on Plex it better to compete not only with other free, ad-supported streamers, but also with dedicated social networks for film and TV reviews such as . Letterboxd and TV timeAmong other things.

With today’s release, Plex says users will now be able to share a public url pointing to their profile on the service at SE.PLEX.TV. By default, users can be found by others on Plex via the app’s search unless they have already turned this off in their settings.

People who see your user profile will be able to see what you’ve seen, what’s on your surveillance list and more. This does not change any of your existing privacy settings, notes Plex.

In addition, PLEX users will have the opportunity to make their assessments and reviews visible to other users on Plex through a new setting. Here you can choose between allowing everyone to see these reviews or only those logged in to Plex. You can also choose that your reviews are only visible to friends or friends’ friends, or you can make all your assessments and reviews private if desired. (By default, both existing and new users will be set to “Friends,” confirmed Plex to TechCrunch.)

In addition to the social networking features, Plex is also launching a preview of its new user interface, initially on Apple TV. Redesigned includes updated navigation, more personal media adjustment, easier functional access, a richer experience with multiple works of art and Plex’s various social networking functions, the company said in its Order.

For super users, Plex Pass subscribers (paid users) will access HEVC hardware coding for better video quality while saving bandwidth. This option was previously in preview mode with selected users, but is now available to all subscribers.