Anybody remember QUIBI?

Around 2020. Was meant to be a streaming app, gimmick being they were tv shows explicitly made to watch on your phone (or iPad I guess). Sometimes with the image format specifically to play into this, and for most of its programming the episodes were noticeably shorter than a regular show because people don’t want to watch a video for 30-60 minutes on a phone. It failed immediately and never took off

In the short time they existed, they actually made quite a few shows from what I remember. Most made before they ever launched. Some never ended up getting released because it collapsed so quickly

Has anybody seen any? Were any good?

I recently noticed some of them popping up on Netflix, Amazon prime, Apple TV etc. so I guess they’ve recuperated some losses from the business failing by selling the shows onwards.

Anybody watched these? Do they look like normal shows or is it a weird vertical thing with black bars on the sides?

It almost feels like it’s from another universe. There’s so many shows with pretty big name actors in them, and because of the format being designed for watching it on your phone a lot of the shows episodes are like 15 minutes long. Plus the fact the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Quibi_original_programming

The Christopher Waltz and Liam Hemsworth show for QUIBI was an adaptation of The Most Dangerous Game. Just have been fairly successful because Amazon bought it and also made a season 2

I like schlocky horror/thrillers, so I think I’ll check out this one called THE STRANGER

>A rideshare driver is thrown into her worst nightmare when a mysterious passenger enters her car. Her terrifying, heart-stopping ride with the stranger unfolds over 12 hours as she navigates LA in a chilling game of cat and mouse.

Stars my favorite scream queen Maika Monroe, and Dane DeHaan as the unhinged psycho killer. Cool to see it takes place over one night based on the episode titles being 1am, 2am etc

Also the episodes are only 10 minutes long so not wasting my time.

There’s 13 episodes total, each about ten minutes long, wonder if somebody could just edit it into a movie and re-release it that way. Would probably reach a much larger audience

I remember T mobile pushing that shit so hard at the time. Offered “free packages” that led into paying memberships after 3 months without telling you. Offered free Quibi but you’d have to give up your free Netflix from the other offers lol

>of its subscribers after the initial three-month trial ran out, with just 72,000 of its roughly 910,000 users who had signed up at launch sticking around as paid customers.

Ouch. Wonder if the creators knew the thing was doomed and were just happy to have the paying work

Unlike a lot of startups that crash and burn I can at least see where the potential was here. But for the market who just wants to watch short form content while on the train or bus or at a break at work, why would they pay for this instead of just using YouTube?

the only thing i remember about it was RLM's sneak ads for it. they would ''poke fun at it'' while they showcased whatever was airing on it. i never checked any of them out. any time i watch anything that was written after 2008 it's typically shit. it's too rare to find good stuff these days

>>212099316
I tied it literally once when it was on and I had a free trial and the thing had so many ads I deleted it before finishing anything. More ads than actual content

Honestly it was an interesting idea but I didn't see it working out and it was funny to see the jew at the top pull EVERY fucking favor he could to get it rolling only for COVID to ruin any amount of interest it had going.

>>212098825 (OP)
Entertainment filmed specifically for your phone!
Finally!

No, fuck that. I'm glad it failed.

10 min episodes and a horrible name. What could go wrong?

Seriously. Quibi sounds like some disease you get from swimming in a lake in Papua New Guinea

>>212099033
Veena Sud

Now that's destined to be a household name.

Pretty sure all the stuff they filmed was with traditional cameras. Any kind of phone specific format would be post production, so if/when they sold the shows to other streaming platforms they would just have them looking like regular shows since obviously Netflix wouldn’t want some vertical angle tv show

>>212099483
How did Covid fuck it?

Not like people stopped using their phones during Covid

>>212099608
The idea was that it was TV you'd watch on your commute. Nobody was going to watch short-form dramas on their phone while walking from the living room to the toilet.

>>212099608
Not the guy you asked, but the gimmick is that you can watch professional tier tv shows or short films on your phone, the assumption being you can only use your phone while on a commute to work, or while you’re on a break, or at a bus stop. Whatever.

When COVID hit everybody got locked inside and could just use their tv and computers. No incentive to use your phone to watch tv and movies (and even pay for the privilege) when you most likely already subscribed to a streaming service that you had on your tv/computer

If Covid never happened I can see Quibi being decently successful but I struggle to imagine it ever being a big player compared to the other streaming giants

If Quibi survived they could’ve pivoted and became more online based.

I’m thinking stuff like hosting those youtuber boxing matches, the video podcasts Joe rogan style. Things people reasonably still watch on their phone

The founders were Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Two very successful industry people.

Whitman is the woman who became CEO of EBay when it was just another small dot com business and made it a behemoth. And her a billionaire as a result. She also became CEO of Hewlett Packard. She also made an unsuccessful run for Governor in California and famously ended up spending so much money that she paid $43 per vote that she got. (Subtle foreshadowing for Quibi I guess)

Jeffrey Katzenberg was a long term and very successful TV and Movie executive in Hollywood. Jeffrey did actually co-found Dreamworks, but Meg Whitman didn’t found eBay or HP.

So these were two extremely successful billionaires, making a startup company with the intent of revolutionising the entertainment industry. And because they had billions already they didn’t really have anything to lose

I feel like them being so insulated by previous success and wealth meant they were never gonna succeed in actually making a successful huge change in business.

I challenge you to please find one company that was started by billionaires and then later ended up really changing the world? Revolutionized some technology? Changing how we do something? I don’t know any

Israel is GENOCIDING Gaza RIGHT NOW and you’re talking about some fucking Quibi phone bullshit??? Get your priorities straight incels

>>212098825 (OP)
Targeting phone zombies with typical slow burn episode nonsense cut further into 4 pieces. NGMI.
They must have really needed to go after that toilet scroll dollar.

>>212098825 (OP)
I’m going to watch When the Streetlights Go On on YouTube for Sophie.