Introducing Home Content Preferences
By Seema Lakhani, Chief Product Officer at Wattpad & General Manager of Wattpad Labs
At Wattpad, our vision is to entertain and connect the world through stories. In many ways, that vision starts with the Home Feed when users open Wattpad. This is the first place people encounter when they use Wattpad, where our personalization systems ensure people can quickly and easily find a range of amazing stories that speak to their individual reading preferences.
One of the ways we’ve tackled personalization is with investments in machine learning, enhancing our recommendation systems for readers and increasing reading times for more engagement.
Another way we’re creating a more personalized experience on Wattpad is by giving users more direct control over what they see from the moment they open the app. We’ve heard from some users that their Home Feed recommendations sometimes feature stories or genres that don’t interest them. These users have let us know they want more control of their Home Feed experience, with a way to dismiss stories or entire genres that don’t fit their tastes.
We’ve taken this feedback to heart, and we are very excited to start rolling out Home Content Preferences. Home Content Preference will offer an improved experience for all Wattpad users, giving them more control of their experience on the platform from the moment they open the app or land on their user homepage.
Right underneath the Home Feed carousel, users will soon find a Settings section that includes two new tools for a personalized experience:
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Include Mature: This will give users the ability to enable Mature stories in their Home feed through a simple ‘On’ and ‘Off’ toggle. As per our existing content guidelines, only users 17 and older will be able to access steamy stories marked Mature.
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Blocked Tags: Not a fan of romance? No problem! Users will be able to block specific story tags, eliminating stories with these tags from appearing in their Home Feed. This will allow users to see more of the genres and themes they want in their Home Feed experience.
The new Mature toggle has begun rolling out, and will be available to all users on web, iOS, and Android in the coming weeks. We’ll be rolling out Blocked Tags starting next week, reaching all users shortly.