Netflix is rolling our 2-minute movie highlights for mobile users

There’s a decent chance you have the Netflix app saved somewhere on your phone, but how often do you actually use it? The video-streaming giant may dominate when it comes to 30-minute-long TV shows and 2-hour movies, but it doesn’t have much to offer for anyone looking for five to 10 minutes of entertainment on a mobile device. That may change though, as the company experiments with offering shorter clips targeted specifically at your smartphone. Netflix recently revealed its plans to serve up short scenes from its library of movies, shows and comedy specials. The idea is still taking form, but one concept the company is considering features new section in the Netflix mobile app titled “Have five minutes.” As you can probably guess, everything on the list is around five minutes long.

Netflix has always been all about TV shows and movies, but soon, it could feature a lot of shorter clips as well: The company is considering adding two- to five-minute-long clips to its catalog to give its growing number of mobile users some bite-sized content to watch, design manager Dantley Davis revealed during an event at Netflix’s Los Gatos headquarters Thursday. However, Netflix isn’t looking to take on YouTube with webisodes and user-generated content. Instead, it may serve up key scenes from TV shows, short snippets of movies and little bits from comedy stand-up specials, all taken out of the catalog of shows and movies Netflix already has. Netflix is testing this type of content on mobile now, said Davis. One of the tests the company is currently running adds an extra row of content titled “Have five minutes?” to the home screen of Netflix’s existing mobile app. The company may add short-form content as a permanent feature when it relaunches its mobile apps in the coming months, depending on the outcome of these tests. Davis said that these tests have so far shown “very positive results.” Davis said Thursday that most Netflix content is still watched on TV screens, but that mobile is seeing the biggest growth, in part because of the way phones have been changing. “As screen sizes are becoming bigger, watching content on phones becomes more natural,” he said.