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Quibi was a misguided venture from the start, and I think it was obvious to anybody existing in the "young" social media world. 10 minutes is way too long to g

by luhn 4y ago

Quibi was a misguided venture from the start, and I think it was obvious to anybody existing in the "young" social media world. 10 minutes is way too long to get the same instant gratification as TikTok, Instagram, et al. It's also too long to mindlessly pickup during the short breaks during the day: Walking down the hallway, waiting in line at Starbucks, commercial break on Hulu, etc. So it has none of the benefits of TikTok, but is artificially constrained to only ten minute episodes, hampering what story can be told in a single episode. It also means you can't license TV shows or movies to bolster the library. Even with a billion dollars, competing with the original content of streaming services like Netflix that have existed for a decade is a tall order.

hakfoo 4y ago
I didn't think of Quibi as trying to be a "social" media. The goal seemed to be to create a new channel for commercial media. There's a valid argument for "conventional media is not ideal for consumption on your phone." The content isn't really mixed or targeted for the device. You can make a strong case for developing media specifically for the format-- like how TV eventually begat the sitcom and 60-minute cop drama. This, however, has to be an iterative process. They blew straight past MVP and went full "here's a finished complete product that we just know people will pay $10 per month for without adequately explaining it to them." They could probably have survived if they had started a lot smaller, and probably went to a different monetization model. For something like this, you almost have to give the store away for a year or two, just to get real user feedback and develop buzz. Maybe when you instrument up users, you find out that 10 minutes is the wrong timeslice, and 6 or 16 flies better. Maybe some content proves to be more suited to the form. Once you have a base of people actually discussing your content, maybe a price plan akin to old Crunchyroll, where the back catalog was ad-supported, and you had to pay to see new content in a timely fashion. You can't expect to sell people on 10 bucks a month when you haven't established your content credentials. I also suspect Covid did a number on some of their key target markets; the idea of "I have 10 minutes to kill and my phone is the only screen choice" dovetails very well with public transport and office lunch breaks, both of which were mysteriously flattened in the spring of 2020. If you're going to be locked down, you may as well be locked down around the 40-inch TV and watch full movies.
- luhn 4y ago
  Didn’t mean to suggest they were trying to become social media, rather they were trying to capture the some of the short-form video screentime that’s mainly served by social media today. They advertised themselves as “quick bites” of video. I’m sure their strategy could have been better and Covid certainly hurt them quite a bit. But in my view none of that matters because the concept was DOA.

by luhn 4y ago

hakfoo 4y ago

I didn't think of Quibi as trying to be a "social" media. The goal seemed to be to create a new channel for commercial media. There's a valid argument for "conventional media is not ideal for consumption on your phone." The content isn't really mixed or targeted for the device. You can make a strong case for developing media specifically for the format-- like how TV eventually begat the sitcom and 60-minute cop drama. This, however, has to be an iterative process. They blew straight past MVP and went full "here's a finished complete product that we just know people will pay $10 per month for without adequately explaining it to them." They could probably have survived if they had started a lot smaller, and probably went to a different monetization model. For something like this, you almost have to give the store away for a year or two, just to get real user feedback and develop buzz. Maybe when you instrument up users, you find out that 10 minutes is the wrong timeslice, and 6 or 16 flies better. Maybe some content proves to be more suited to the form. Once you have a base of people actually discussing your content, maybe a price plan akin to old Crunchyroll, where the back catalog was ad-supported, and you had to pay to see new content in a timely fashion. You can't expect to sell people on 10 bucks a month when you haven't established your content credentials. I also suspect Covid did a number on some of their key target markets; the idea of "I have 10 minutes to kill and my phone is the only screen choice" dovetails very well with public transport and office lunch breaks, both of which were mysteriously flattened in the spring of 2020. If you're going to be locked down, you may as well be locked down around the 40-inch TV and watch full movies.

luhn 4y ago
Didn’t mean to suggest they were trying to become social media, rather they were trying to capture the some of the short-form video screentime that’s mainly served by social media today. They advertised themselves as “quick bites” of video. I’m sure their strategy could have been better and Covid certainly hurt them quite a bit. But in my view none of that matters because the concept was DOA.