10 Ways WWE Could Sell More Network Subscriptions
3. A General Service Improvement
The WWE Network is not intuitive.
The Search function is particularly maddening. Say, for example, you fancy watching the WrestleMania X-Seven main event without scrolling through the PPV years field and, depending on the platform used, fast-forwarding through three and a quarter hours of the rest of the card. You just want to watch Steve Austin and The Rock put on a bloodbath at the click of a bloody button, as promised by the very on-demand selling point. So, instead, you type the terms AUSTIN ROCK into the search bar.
It would make sense to filter the results through relevance, as opposed to nothing.
This isn't the case. Instead, with no algorithm of which to speak, the Network arbitrarily spits out at random anything with those terms buried in the code. The finish of the 'Mania XIX match appears first. Then, a link to the entire (abysmal) Rock Bottom 1998 PPV. A Tag Team Buried Alive Match (!) from a September '99 episode of SmackDown...between the Undertaker and The Big Show and Mankind and The Rock. The finish to that match. The finish to a Haku and Rikishi Vs. The Rock handicap match from a 2001 SmackDown.
And so on. The coding is a disgrace.
Several Network users abandon it when WrestleMania season ends and the customary awfulness begins. If the service actually allowed them to do so with a degree of efficiency, they could use it to remind themselves of happier times.