For all the time I've spent bingeing Succession or revisiting old episodes of Frasier, there's probably no single show I've watched more than the endless scroll of the Netflix menu — to say nothing of the Hulu, and Amazon Prime, and HBO Go ones.
Some nights, I've even spent so long trying to decide on a title that I run out of time to watch anything at all, and go to bed having seen nothing.
It's an annoyance Jes Bickhart knows well, and one he hopes his new app, Minnow, will solve."How do you take the 30 minutes on average that people are spending just browsing, looking for something to watch, and take it out of the equation?" he asks me rhetorically over the phone.
(Note: The average is actually 23 minutes, according to one study, as Bickhart later clarifies to me through a publicist.)
The answer that Bickhart has come up with is an application that combines universal search with a social playlist function: Think Spotify for movies and TV, or Letterboxd if Letterboxd included more TV titles and was also able to send you directly to the correct streaming platform to watch then and there.
So say, for instance, you're looking for something romantic to watch tonight. You might open up Minnow to look up a playlist of great love stories, and then from that list settle on Punch-Drunk Love as the evening's entertainment. Clicking on the movie's title will send you to the streaming app on which Punch-Drunk Love is available, based on the platforms you've chosen in your settings — in my case, Minnow suggests Netflix. (Titles that aren't available to stream anywhere at the moment will be indicated as "Coming Soon," but can still be liked or added to playlists.)
As of launch, the app is available on iPhone and Android, tablets including iPad and Pixel, Amazon Fire devices, Apple TV, and Android TV, with plans to expand to Roku and more smart TVs in the coming year.
Minnow is an idea Bickhart tells me he came up with as a "frustrated consumer," though his own background in the entertainment industry gave him some added context. A former indie film executive (he worked on titles including Mary Shelley and Brian Banks for Amy Baer at Gidden Media), Bickhart noticed that the rise of streaming services meant more buyers for movies and shows — and yet at home, he still struggled to find something to watch.
"I have a Letterboxd account, I queue up titles there, I do reviews, I have an iPhone note of movies and shows that I want to watch," he says. "And then despite these sources, I still find myself not knowing what I want to watch when Succession ends. Am I going to start Watchmen? Am I going to commit to a new show, or a new series? Or is there something else?"
"How do you take the 30 minutes on average that people are spending just browsing, looking for something to watch, and take it out of the equation?"
Minnow's fix to that dilemma is playlists, which any user, including brands and verified professional critics, can make and share. (Or keep private: "I have so many guilty pleasures that I don’t want you to find out about," Bickhart laughs.) At present, for example, users can peruse a "Best of 1999" playlist compiled by A.V. Club editor A.A. Dowd, or a "Best Horror Movies" playlist created by Indiewire critic David Ehrlich. There will also be playlists curated by Minnow's editorial team, and algorithm-generated listings of new and popular movies and series.
In turn, Bickhart, or any user, can recommend shows or films to their own friends by favoriting a title or adding it to a public playlist. As Bickhart sees it, that personal touch is key. "Just filtering by genres and IMDb ratings doesn’t help me find something," says Bickhart. "But what will help me find something is you, as an individual, making a playlist of your top 10 holiday movies that are probably underrated, and I can know that I could watch for free on my HBO Now subscription."
As for Bickhart himself, he's got a few recommendations he's been waiting to share, too. "One of my favorite movies from the last three years was Sing Street," he gushes. "Making a playlist of not just John Carney movies but the greatest unsung movie musicals in the last 10 years — you better believe in the next couple weeks you’re going to go onto my profile and find that playlist."
