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Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

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Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#101

Post by SilasX »

jonny_eh wrote: post #75
KallDrexx wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's easy to say in hindsight, but I think if the pandemic wouldn't really happen there's a good chance their conversion would be even higher. Their whole business model is meant for consumers who are on the go with short time bursts, which is exactly the opposite of what we have today. It very well could be that their shortage of content wouldn't have been as big of a deal because their ideal users weren't binging…

> with short time bursts The problem is that the short time bursts are highly variable, but they specifically target 10 minutes. That's why people scroll through twitter or instagram, it fills the void, no matter how long it is.

Right, that was my intuition as well. Ten minutes is still too long for the use case that they’re targeting, of people on the go who want to fill in time looking at their phone. A ten-minute short still requires a level of concentration (and absence of interruptions) not suited for that scenario. Social media is still a lot better for that, as is tiktok’s far lower video length.

And, yes, I know it sounds kind of bizarre to ridicule a ten-minute short as “too long”. Fortunately, the public is (still, for now) absolutely willing to watch productions that take a bigger time and attention investment. It’s just, they want to watch it at home, possibly with others, on a bigscreen. Quibi deliberately avoided that with the “mobile only” constraint that they’re now reversing.

Edit: sorry for overusing “still”.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#102

Post by mikeryan »

KallDrexx wrote: post #64
mikeryan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in this industry and generally agree with your assessment. However a few things, the general industry perspective went like this: 1. David Katzenberg and Meg Whitman were creating a consumer service targeting a demographic they don't fit in a field they've not worked in. (Consumer apps for a younger demographic) 2. They got 1.8 Billion in funding. For fuck's sake you should get one breakout hit piece of conten…

That's easy to say in hindsight, but I think if the pandemic wouldn't really happen there's a good chance their conversion would be even higher. Their whole business model is meant for consumers who are on the go with short time bursts, which is exactly the opposite of what we have today. It very well could be that their shortage of content wouldn't have been as big of a deal because their ideal users weren't binging…

If the content was good folks would watch it, Whether in quick bites or not.

Even then, adjusting to the new reality and repackaging 10 minute episodes of a show into 30-60 minute episodes could likely be done in an editors suite in a few weeks.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#103

Post by mikeryan »

thiagocesar wrote: post #59
mikeryan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in this industry and generally agree with your assessment. However a few things, the general industry perspective went like this: 1. David Katzenberg and Meg Whitman were creating a consumer service targeting a demographic they don't fit in a field they've not worked in. (Consumer apps for a younger demographic) 2. They got 1.8 Billion in funding. For fuck's sake you should get one breakout hit piece of conten…

Apple, Quibi, Amazon are trying to plan the perfect breakout show. It doesn’t work like that. A lot of the networks’s and Netflix’s breakout shows were not planned to be great. That’s why they just greenlight a bunch of random pilots and see what sticks to the wall. It’s extremely hard to create hits.

Yes but every network in existence does it and is forced into that paradigm. Every premium channel on cable (HBO/Showtime/Starz etc) have had to have a new breakout hit pretty much every year with a pretty small slate of new content - and Quibi has been able to combine this with some formats that actually should work (News, short form comedy etc).

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#104

Post by freeone3000 »

pjc50 wrote: post #58
whoisjuan wrote: post #42

The problem with Quibi is thinking that they can charge for this content. People are not gonna pay for quick bite videos, even if they have a high production value. Why would anyone do that with such limited time? The problem of all these platforms is that they think they are creating a new market or expanding an existing one and they forget that people only have 24 hours a day to do things. If you create something l…

I dunno, doing short vertical videos with low production value was the huge innovation of TikTok? (Not counting its predecessor, Vine) But I accept that launching it as a paid service was extremely risky. Better to start with something free and attention-getting.

Vine videos are thirty seconds, not 10 minutes. It's an entirely different proposition.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#105

Post by jm4 »

mikeryan wrote: post #52
ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #14

8% is not a terrible conversion rate at all, and they’ve only just started. I’m not a Quibi user and have no vested interest in them either way but this is the third different article I’ve seen in the last week or 2 talking about how terrible they’re doing and now they’re about to crash and burn, because of an 8% conversion? Comparing them to Disney is ridiculous too, it’s Disney! With multiple generations obsessed w…

I work in this industry and generally agree with your assessment. However a few things, the general industry perspective went like this: 1. David Katzenberg and Meg Whitman were creating a consumer service targeting a demographic they don't fit in a field they've not worked in. (Consumer apps for a younger demographic) 2. They got 1.8 Billion in funding. For fuck's sake you should get one breakout hit piece of conten…

Their mistake is they're trying to do something that all the other established players could essentially replicate overnight. Their big innovation is the shows are shorter? On top of it, their execution is poor. They put out the standard shows you would see anywhere else except edited so that a single episode turns into a half dozen shorter ones. They pretty much positioned themselves out in no man's land between Netflix and YouTube. They really seem oblivious to what's already out there, who their competition is and where they fit in.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#107

Post by 1123581321 »

baddox wrote: post #97
thiagocesar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple, Quibi, Amazon are trying to plan the perfect breakout show. It doesn’t work like that. A lot of the networks’s and Netflix’s breakout shows were not planned to be great. That’s why they just greenlight a bunch of random pilots and see what sticks to the wall. It’s extremely hard to create hits.

> It doesn’t work like that. A lot of the networks’s and Netflix’s breakout shows were not planned to be great. That might be true for a lot of breakout shows, but not all of them. House of Cards was arguably Netflix' first breakout show, and Netflix outbid other networks for House of Cards when they were just starting to focus on original programming. That was always painted in showbiz media as a very deliberate pla…

We know now that they didn’t really have that data at the time. They just heard Fincher was available and bought his idea unseen for a lot of money so no one else could get to propose to him.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#108

Post by jlokier »

mattjack wrote: post #44

A few others have mentioned that Quibi is not an interesting enough alternative timewasting app to Snapchat, Instagram, etc. I agree and I'm glad to see it fail for that reason; I want my attention span back and I'm trying to cut these things out of my life. I notice my well-being improves when I do. That's personal preference obviously, and people are free to spend their time how they want, but I think the loss of a…

It seems strange to me that you want Quibi to die so that you can get your attention span back. To cut these things out of your life.

Can't you just... ignore it?

Cut these things out of your life anyway?

Live and let live?

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#109

Post by mixmastamyk »

ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #14

8% is not a terrible conversion rate at all, and they’ve only just started. I’m not a Quibi user and have no vested interest in them either way but this is the third different article I’ve seen in the last week or 2 talking about how terrible they’re doing and now they’re about to crash and burn, because of an 8% conversion? Comparing them to Disney is ridiculous too, it’s Disney! With multiple generations obsessed w…

Also at $6.99 Disney is practically "dumping" their valuable content on the market. How is a newcomer supposed to compete with that? Talk about barriers to entry.

Netflix is getting $12.99 from me and it doesn't look like a bargain compared to Disney.

Re: Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired

#110

Post by root_axis »

thiagocesar wrote: post #59
mikeryan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in this industry and generally agree with your assessment. However a few things, the general industry perspective went like this: 1. David Katzenberg and Meg Whitman were creating a consumer service targeting a demographic they don't fit in a field they've not worked in. (Consumer apps for a younger demographic) 2. They got 1.8 Billion in funding. For fuck's sake you should get one breakout hit piece of conten…

Apple, Quibi, Amazon are trying to plan the perfect breakout show. It doesn’t work like that. A lot of the networks’s and Netflix’s breakout shows were not planned to be great. That’s why they just greenlight a bunch of random pilots and see what sticks to the wall. It’s extremely hard to create hits.

HBO seems to be able to consistently churn out hits, and not just "hits" but cultural touchtones that ripple throughout pop-culture.
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