Rakuten Viki, a streaming service specializing in Asian content, said it is expanding its Watch Party to let users schedule their own private events while watching programming.
At Watch Parties, users can view programming as a group and interact via chat.
Rakuten Viki introduced its Watch Party over the summer. In addition to private Watch Party, Rakuten Viki continues to schedule community-wide public Watch Parties with an exciting movie event planned at the end of October for Halloween featuring popular horror films.
“Our viewers come to Rakuten Viki not only because of the wide variety of TV shows, movies, and other kinds of enjoyable content, but because they also feel like they are part of a community,” said Cathy Chang, VP of product at Rakuten Viki.
“They like to discover programs together, give each other recommendations, and help make the programs accessible to even more people by helping to create subtitles in many different languages. The new Watch Party feature is an extension of this community Rakuten Viki users have already been building themselves,” Chang said. “It’s another way for us to bring our community together to engage conversations with each other, especially in the midst of the pandemic, and we are so glad that we can offer this to them.”
Rakuten Viki’s Watch Party is available now via desktop browser in the U.S. with plans to roll out globally at a later date. Premium content will also be available for scheduled Watch Parties in the coming months, as well as additional interactive features. More details will be available at a later date.
By logging into their Rakuten Viki account, users can host their own private Watch Party and join other Watch Parties for free using a unique link provided by the host. Once a Watch Party starts, users can interact with friends and members of the community via a chat board running parallel to the media player.
Watch Party will expand to all drama episodes, increase content availability, incorporate more community features, and be available in more regions, the company said.
Rakuten Viki offers free streaming (with advertising and limits on some content) and tiered subscriptions of Standard Pass for $4.99 a month, and Plus Pass for $9.99 a month.
Rakuten Viki has a vast collection of more than 1,400 TV shows and movies from Korea, Japan, mainland China, Taiwan, and Thailand.
The service is available on desktop browser, via Roku, Amazon Firestick, Apple TV+, Android TV, Chromecast, and on mobile devices. Rakuten Viki has a vast collection of more than 1,400 TV shows and movies from Korea, Japan, mainland China, Taiwan, and Thailand.
