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Saved by @akashat_jain

A Netflix user will browse the app for 90 seconds and leave if they find nothing.

Thumbnail artwork is actually NFLX's most effective lever to influence a viewer's choice. A user will look at one for only 1.8 seconds, so NFLX spends huge to optimize them.

Here's a breakdown🧵

 1/ Spoiler alert: humans are visual animals.

Our eyes move 3-4x per second to process information and we can analyze an image in as little as 13 milliseconds.
2/ In 2014, Netflix consumer research showed that thumbnail artwork:

◻️ is "the biggest influencer...to watch content"
◻️ is the focus of 82% of browsing time

A user looks at one for only 1.8 seconds. If they can't find Netflix content in 90 seconds, they'll leave the app.
3/ Consequently, Netflix uses an elaborate thumbnail selection process for each of its 200m+ users.

The process is called aestethic visual analysis (AVA), which starts by pulling all the frames from a video.

For reference: a 1hr episode of "Stranger Things" has 86k frames.
4/ In a process known as "Frame Annotation", each frame is tagged with metadata identifying key variables:

◻️ Saliency
◻️ Frame #
◻️ Brightness / Contrast
◻️ Nudity probability
◻️ Face / skin tone
5/ The frames are then graded on these variables.

◻️ Visual (brightness, contrast, color, motion blur)
◻️ Contextual (face detection / shot angle)
◻️ Composition (photography principles like "rule of thirds", symmetry, depth of field)
6/ The next step is "Image Ranking", which chooses the best thumbnails (most likely to be clicked).

Winning traits include:
◻️ Expressive faces
◻️ Main characters
◻️ Brightness

For "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt", Netflix research showed the bottom right frame as the "winner".
7/ Another winning trait is good localization.

The best thumbnails (green arrow) for each country for the show "Sense8" had attributes most attractive to that specific region.
8/ Also: thumbnails with villainous characters outperform.

Netflix says these bad guy thumbnails (green arrow) for "Dragons: Race to the Edge" are the most clicked.
9/ One last finding: Netflix discovered that thumbnails with more than 3 people vastly underperform.

Netflix applied this knowledge for the rollout of "Orange Is The New Black". Season 2 has only one character in the thumbnail (vs. an ensemble for Season 1)
10/ One reason Netflix started creating its own thumbnails is that the artwork provided by studios weren't optimized for the streaming app.

The creative work Netflix received was meant for other mediums like billboards or DVD covers.
11/ At the most basic level, Netflix applies ML to select a thumbnail for you based on recent watch history.

Take "Good Will Hunting" as an example:
◻️ Rom-com watchers get the top thumbnail ("a date")
◻️ Comedy fans get the bottom thumbnail (with Robin Williams)
11/ Here are different Netflix thumbnail selections for "Pulp Fiction":

◻️ Uma Thurman fans get the top thumbnail
◻️ John Travolta fans get the bottom thumbnail
12/ Unsurprisingly, Netflix also A/B tests the thumbnails it shows users. The artwork is constantly changing.

Here is a sample of thumbnails for the film "The Short Game" and how each performed:
13/ As with any ML algorithm, results can be curious. In 2018, Netflix was accused of creating artwork based on race.

For a majority caucasian film "Like Father", one Black user was served the right image. Netflix said it makes artwork only on viewing history (not demographics).
14/ A less harmless example of thumbnail optimization is showcasing trending actors / actresses for content they played a smaller role in: https://t.co/CxxxojgTiR
15/ Back to the Squid Game thumbnails from the 1st tweet. They don't really follow any of the artwork "rules".

Then again, those are only 3 that I saw out of 1000s of other options.

And Squid Game is about to be NFLX's most popular original series ever, so something's working.
16/ If you enjoyed that, I write threads breaking down tech and business 1-2x a week.

Def follow @TrungTPhan to catch them in your feed.

Here's a one that might tickle your fancy: https://t.co/aq0K6wH5HE
17/ Sources

Vox: https://t.co/9wfes7TVv0

Thumbnail controversy: https://t.co/lbGNEVoBwR

Netflix internal docs are a must read

1: https://t.co/tQVfTMMWb6
2: https://t.co/gbiSHWqTbK
18/ I also discuss interesting topics like this once a week (with a healthy dose of dumb jokes) on the Not Investment Advice (NIA) podcast.

Subscribe here: https://t.co/Xd53bnWzlD
19/ Last image: Here's what Netflix's home screen looks like with ZERO thumbnail artwork.
20/ One more factoid: Netflix’s revenue per employee is an insane $2.6m.

More than:

◻️Apple ($2m)
◻️Alphabet ($1.4m)
◻️Microsoft ($877k)

(Apple obvi crushes profits and FCF, though)
21/ @netflix is def one company where this meme doesn’t apply: https://t.co/vDt4hEngjW

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Steve Jobs famously said innovation is "saying no to 1000 things" before you say yes.

For more than a decade, Apple has used Pablo Picasso's Bull to drive home the lesson.

Here's a breakdown 🧵


In Dec. 1945, Picasso created "The Bull", a series of 11 lithographs (stone prints).

With each successive print, a bull is simplified and abstracted. Picasso's goal was to find "spirit of the beast".

At Apple, employees are taught this philosophy.


Below are the 1st, 4th and last stone print.

The bull progresses from:
◻️a realistic drawing
◻️to a deconstructed image w/ the famous "abstract" style
◻️to lines outlining a shape

Through 11 iterations, Picasso simplified the image until it captured the "essence" of the bull.


Picasso said of the abstraction process:

"Two holes. That’s the symbol for the face, enough to evoke it without representing it. But isn’t it strange that it can be done through such simple means? Whatever is most abstract may perhaps be the summit of reality.”


Enter Apple University.

In 2008, Steve Jobs tapped the dean of Yale School of Management to create an internal training curriculum for Apple.

The program was meant to teach new employees Apple's culture and design philosophy (the teachings are rarely shared with the public).
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Trung Phan \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
Trung Phan 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
Our intuitions often leads us astray. A good reminder: study counterintuitive math and economic results.

Here are 9 of them 🧵

The Birthday Paradox

In a room of 23 people, there's a >50% chance that 2 people share the same birthday.

This type of probabilistic thinking does *not* come naturally to many people.


The Coastline Paradox

Fractal geometry is also confounding:

The coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined measurement. As the unit of measurement gets smaller (eg. from KMs to cm), the length increases without limit.


Winner's Curse

In an auction, the winning bid will usually exceed the intrinsic worth of an item leading to a significant overpay (and negative net profit for the winner).


Braess's Paradox

Removing an extra road can make everyone's commute time faster.

Why? The existence of a "fast" road leads to congestion because everyone uses it. If you remove the shortcut, traffic flows better.
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Trung Phan \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
Trung Phan 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
The most memorable interview I did this year was w/ Stanley Druckenmiller, who famously made $1B shorting the British Pound.

The trading legend's track record includes a 30-year stretch returning 30%+ a year (without a single down year).

Here are 8 investing lessons🧵

1/ Make concentrated bets in high conviction plays


2/ Concentrated bets can sometimes *reduce* risk


3/ Use a multi-disciplinary approach to investing


4/ Know when to sell (he never uses a stop loss)
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Trung Phan \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
Trung Phan 🇨🇦...
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Peter Thiel's 2014 Reddit AMA is full of nuggets 🧵

1/ His biggest investing mistake was *not* doubling down on Facebook


2/ Thoughts when he first met Elon


3/ Whether he has a "ban" on hiring MBAs


4/ Why he invested in SpaceX


5/ His reaction to the movie The Social Network
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Trung Phan 🇨🇦...
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For decades, Jeff Bezos shunned ads.

But now, Amazon’s ad business is huge: it’s on a $30B+ annual run rate (more than 2x the combined sales of Twitter, Snap and Pinterest).

Here’s how it happened 🧵


1/ Amazon doesn’t break out its ad business separately in financial filings. However, most analyst believe ads make up the majority of its “Other” revenue segment.

This figure has exploded from $1B in 2015 to a current annual run rate of ~$32B.


2/ In 2009, Bezos said “ads are the price you pay for a crappy product”.

But the business is so lucrative that Amazon’s interface has been swamped with ads:

◻️ First 3-7 search results (left in red)
◻️ Most of the product page (right in blue)


3/ Prior to the rise of ads, Amazon set out to build the ultimate organic customer recommendations engine.

The approach was codified in a famed 2003 research paper: “Amazon Recommendations: Item-to-Item Collaborative Filtering.”


4/ In recent years, Amazon organic recommendations:

◻️"Customers who bought this also bought this"
◻️"Customers who viewed also viewed"

Have been replaced w/ ads:

◻️ "Sponsored products related to"
◻️ "Brands related to this category"
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ULTIMATE GUIDE TO 21 and 200 Moving Average
SUNDAY THREAD 🔖
A trend Following System That will Help You Improve Trading immensely.

RETWEET AND SHARE 🔄
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#stocks #StockMarket
1/n

Moving averages
EMA and SMA
1. Exponential Moving Average (EMA) is similar to Simple Moving Average (SMA), measuring trend direction over a period of time.
2. However, whereas SMA simply calculates an average of price data, EMA applies more weight to data that is more current
2/


21 EMA : SHORT TERM TREND
1. Calculates the Average Price of past 21 days
2. A stock above 21 ema is in strong momentum , which will give pullbacks to 21 ema again and again.
3. Stock above 21 ema should never be shorted so as to stay with the trend
3/n

3. A stock which moves 10-15% above 21 ema will be too extended and hence will generally pullback
Stocks take dynamic support on 21 ema
4. You can Short only if its too extended like 15 to 20% from 21 ema ( Not advised )
#ADANIPOWER:
#pnbhousing
4/n


1. Whenever 21 ema is sloping upwards its called uptrend
2. Whenever 21 ema is sloping downwards its called dowtrend
3. Whenever 21 ema is sideways its called consolidation
⏫Buy in uptrend
⏬Sell in downtrend
Examples:
5/n
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Again sharing bank nifty intraday weekly straddle. How to play by selling straddle.
Mostly will work on Monday to Wednesday. Sometimes on Friday.
Why to pay your money to learn this if u can get it here.
U need only practice.
Let’s go.

Say bank nifty future is at 32000.
Sell both 32000 call and put.
Considering current volatile market lest say premium on Monday morning is 350 on both sides.
Sold with 700 points combine premium.
If bank nifty will trade in narrow range say +\- 100 hold it.
If moving 200 points

then exit previous sold straddle. Sell new one. Let’s say BN moved +200
Now sell 32200. If bank nifty will move here within range then u will get profit through theta decay. Follow same procedure for next 150-200 pts move.

This is only for single straddle sell position.

Now in second case sell three straddle. 31900/32000/32100
In case of 100 points move no need to change.
If 200 + then future is 32200.
Exit 31900 and sell 31200 straddle.
If moving another 100 then exit 32000 and sell 32300. Continue same with 100 points move.
If no move then

it will consolidate between 32000-32200 or 32100 to 32300 and u will get theta decay.

This is for normal move. Sudden big move may come anytime. So keep SL in system.
If u r selling at 350-350 then keep SL in system 475 for both legs.
Practice it. No need to attend webinar.
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MEENAKSHI AMMAN, MADURAI (TN)
#bharatmandir #navratri2021

A paadal Petra sthalam where Shiva took the form of Sundareswarar (the handsome one) and married Devi Parvati (Meenakshi).
Devi is also known by the name Angayarkanni (mother with the beautiful fish eyes).
@GunduHuDuGa


Devi Meenakshi emerged from yagna fire as a 3 year old girl when Pandyan King Malayadwaja and Kanchanamalai were praying for a child.
It is said that Devi was born with three breasts and there was a prophesy that her superfluous breast would melt away when she met her husband.


Devi ruled over Madurai and captured Indralok. She went on to capture Kailasha. When she saw Shiva, her 3rd breast disappeared and she realised that Shiva would be her consort.
The divine marriage was attended by all Devas and Sri Vishnu (as her brother) gave her hand to Shiva.


It is said that Indra found a swayambhu lingam at Kadamba Vanam. He placed it in Madurai where the kshetram stands. Here, Shiva is seen on the vehicle of Indra.
The Golden Lotus Tank is said to be the place where a golden lotus blossomed for the puja performed by Indra.


The Meenakshi Thirukalyanam festival is celebrated in the Chithirai month to mark the divine marriage of Meenakshi Amman. The festival includes a procession where Meenakshi and Sundareshwara travel in a chariot and Sri Vishnu gives away his sister in marriage to Shiva.
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has sold more than 40 million copies.

Don't have time to read it?
—No worries.

Here are the 7 key lessons you should apply:


Habit #1 — BE PROACTIVE

It all starts with action.

Rather than being "reactive" (externally influenced).
Focus on being "proactive" (initiative-taking).

This puts you in firm control of your life.


Habit #2 — BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

"No wind is favorable if one does not know to which port one is sailing."

I use this goal-setting system to stay on track myself:

Who do I want to be --> Monthly goal to achieve it? --> Daily action to reach that goal?

I update weekly.


Habit #3 — FIRST THINGS FIRST

Knowing the work that moves the needle is half the battle.

The Eisenhower Matrix can come in handy here:

Urgent + Important - Do it
Important + Not urgent - Schedule it
Urgent + Not important - Delegate it
Not urgent + Not important - Delete it


Habit #4 — THINK WIN-WIN

Always strive to find a mutually beneficial solution.

How to:
- Be as objective as possible
- Try to see from their perspective
- Determine what a "win" truly means for both parties
- Work to find the best solution for both parties
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Unfortunately, her memory has been blemished by inaccurate representations in modern popular media.

The serial "Punyashlok Ahilyabai" depicts her as ultra secularist feminazi icon who questions Hindu rituals & Pandits while patronising Sufis.

This is far from historical truth!


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By the time she was married, fortunes of Holkar family had already waxed.

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Up.

Your.

Game.

You just might be too stupid to be following me.

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THE BATTLE OF SARAIGHAT (1671)

Lachit Borphukan's humiliation of Aurangzeb.

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Guts, resolve and glory!

(Elaborate thread)


Koch was a state situated between the dominions of M0ghuls and Ahoms. For Ahoms, it was a buffer state for keeping M0ghul territorial expansions at bay.(1)

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