After Netflix announced and started its StreamFest on the weekend, Amazon wasn’t far behind in catching up. Though it hasn’t yet started another streamfest of sorts but it has brought the “watch party” feature to India, finally. After a successful launch of the feature earlier this year in The States, India has received the feature next. The feature allows you to watch and even binge watch your favourite movies and shows with your friends and loved one, together. It also has a chat feature in it so that people are actually connected while watching the show or film.
While this year was all about staying connected over the internet and let’s thank God once for this and whoever pioneered the internet, it was all about online meetings, work from home, video calls and what not. On the recreational front, we missed out on the fun of going out and watching movies in the theatres but now even though it’s late, we finally can have the same fun through from the comfort of our homes.
The “Watch Party” feature can be availed by anyone that has Prime membership. To use the feature, though you have to go through some simple steps:
Step 1: Click on the Watch Party option on the screen for movies and for episodes you can find it next to each episode.
Step 2: Choose a name that you want to use for the watch party and put it in the chat. Now, create your Watch Party.
Step 3: Share the link with people you want to watch the said movie or episode with. Now enjoy your time together.
The link can be used by 100 people, meaning that a total of 100 people can join the watch party at a time. Also, the Watch Party feature is only available in the desktop version and supported only through web browsers. The update for the iOS or Android is yet to arrive. Further, the link can be opened and by only those who have a Prime Membership. Also, the host can only play or pause the video, while the chat feature makes it handy for everyone to connect socially.
Amazon Prime Video is not the first to bring the Watch Party feature. Facebook already has this feature and another service called Teleparty has the feature that supports content from Netflix, Hulu or Disney+. Though, Teleparty can’t give a surety as it is a third party service