Quibi: The billion dollar platform you never heard about

October 6 will represent the half-year mark since the launch of the short-content billion-dollar streaming platform you probably never heard about. Quibi which is a portmanteau for “quick bites” was released on April 6th in America and Canada alongside an ad-free version made available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and Germany.

Founded by the two media magnates Jeffrey Katzenberg (previous Walt Disney Disney

chairman) and (former Hewlett-Packard CEO) Meg Whitman Quibi was designed to be a

mobile-only experience. Only available on smartphones Quibi is offering 5 to 10 minute short

episodes, a format they call “movies in chapters”. The 1.8 billion dollars that the company

managed to raise were used for the UX mobile design which makes the platform and all of its

content available both in horizontal and portrait mode. On top of that, a posse of recognizable Hollywood directors and actors such as Steven Spielberg, Liam Hemsworth, Sophie Turner and Jennifer Lopez was gathered to create original content.

So up until this part of the story, everything looked fine and dandy so as the professional

blogger that I am I took it on myself to research and experience the platform. Unfortunately,

because of regional unavailability, I could not download the app so I watched the free episodes they posted on YouTube and procured some other episodes from sources not worth mentioning.

The platform offers 3 categories of content:

● Movies in Chapters: Longer features broken into chapters of 5–10 minutes

● Unscripted and Docs: Shows that are episodic in nature and are 10 minutes or less

● Daily Essentials: Daily curated quick bites of news, entertainment, and inspiration in the

5–6 minute range.

I was impressed with the quality of the episodes. Weird stories from a woman finding her

boyfriends talking sex-mannequin to a male cast Hunger Games-like story with Christopher

Waltz offering Chris Hemsworth's character an exorbitant amount of money for letting him and his friends hunt him…

The content is good, the idea is novel and interesting.

So what went wrong?

“I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus,” “Everything. But we own it.” Katzenberg

At the moment the Wall Street Journal reports that Quibi will “fail to hit even 30% of its projected

first-year subscribers goal, with a likely year-end total of under two million paying customers”.

Katzenberg is confident that the timing of the release of Quibi and the start of the novel

coronavirus pandemic is to blame for the catastrophic results of the app launch. The platform

was meant to be used on the go, waiting for your bus in the station or while you do your weekly

cardio treadmill session at the gym. With most of the people being stuck at home or

encountering all sorts of restrictions regarding “outside activities,” the app cannot be used in its optimal way. Slowly people started mocking the app.

“Quibi has 10 Emmy nominations this year… it’s the dumbest thing to ever cost a billion dollars.” - Jimmy Kimmel (The Pandemmyes)

In case Quibi was not under enough pressure the company is being sued by the

interactive-video company Eko with litigations surrounding an intellectual property dispute about the technology used for the horizontal-portrait-mode technology used by Quibi.

“ Until we are in an environment where we can get a return on our investment, we are going to keep our powder dry,” -Katzenberg

The poor launch alongside the continuation of the novel corona situation has forced Quibi to

“explore strategic options—including a sale or IPO” as of this September.

Now that you are acquainted with Quibi you can stay in touch with the subject as the next few months will reveal the new direction of the billion-dollar concept.