With people holing up in self-quarantine and practicing social distancing during coronavirus, we still look for ways to connect with other and have a communal experience. The rise of streaming is all well and good for watching movies at home, but part of the reason the theatrical experience is so valuable is that we also like watch movies with other people. When there's a popular TV show, we like talking about it with our friends and seeing all the twists and turns together. Surprisingly, Netflix has been slow to introduce a feature that would allow this kind of communal experience, but thankfully the developers of the Google Chrome extension "Netflix Party" stepped up.

Per the official description, Netflix Party, "Netflix Party is a Chrome extension for watching Netflix remotely with friends, e.g., for movie nights with that long-distance special someone. It synchronizes video playback and adds group chat." So if you're up for watching Netflix on your computer through your Google Chrome browser, just download this extension, get your friends to download the extension, and then agree upon something to watch! That last part may be the hardest thing to do…

As people hunker down with their streaming services, I hope the various streamers start considering that they need to increase functionality and features. Sure, content is king and these streamers will need a constant supply of movies and TV shows to keep people entertained, but I wouldn't underestimate the importance of the user experience. Netflix, if they developed something like this in-house, could really jump ahead of their competitors. Imagine if you could social reactions to a movie or share your chat logs, but the feature is exclusive to Netflix? Being able to share an experience with your friends is an advantage, and streamers should be looking for every advantage they can get right now.