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Learning From Quibi

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11–20 of 26 posts

Re: Learning From Quibi

#11
post #7
post #4

This post is missing some numbers to put the size of Quibi's failure in context. "Quibi spent over $1 billion on commissioning original content in its first year, totalling 8,500 short-form episodes and including over 175 shows." according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quibi#Content . This is a cost of about $10k/minute. (For comparison, SpaceX spent ~$85m ( https://craft.co/spacex/funding-rounds ) to blow up thre…

It's quite amazing that they spent that much money and not a single one got shared to anybody I know. That's a colossal failure. They'd have been better off splitting that money up and handing that money to every single performing and visual arts student in the US. They would have gotten at least one viral thing out of it.

What is shocking is not that everyone pointed out there is no way to share clips or maybe memes of shows right in the beginning, its after hearing this, they didn't bother to change this problem. Like you made the mistake, but its not hardware, you can change the app, and they never did? Or maybe they did sometime? but now nobody cares.

Re: Learning From Quibi

#12
post #4

This post is missing some numbers to put the size of Quibi's failure in context. "Quibi spent over $1 billion on commissioning original content in its first year, totalling 8,500 short-form episodes and including over 175 shows." according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quibi#Content . This is a cost of about $10k/minute. (For comparison, SpaceX spent ~$85m ( https://craft.co/spacex/funding-rounds ) to blow up thre…

I don’t really see how those three have any similarities. Quibi is similar to a movie flopping - sometimes happens even to good movies. ML seems like they thought they can get the tech improved but were in too early. Also happens all the time. Theranos was a scam from very early on.

No movie has ever had a budget anywhere near $1.75 billion. This is more like... making the 5 most expensive movies of all time, in a row, and flopping all of them.

That's a completely different level of failure.

Re: Learning From Quibi

#13

I read that Quibi does not own its content. The content creators do. I don't understand. How could Quibi possibly spend $2B in 6 months when it doesn't even own its content. What exactly did it spend those $2B on?

Disgusting amounts of advertising and endorsements?

Re: Learning From Quibi

#14
I struggle to understand the thesis of this post. Its entitled "learning from quibi" but what did the author learn? I have no ides after reading it.

At most i think the author is saying a succesful company is based around finding something bad in the world, and doing it better, and that quibi thought they were doing that but were actually deluding themselves. Which sure, in retrospect is pretty obvious, but its hardly an insight to say that a business which failed because nobody thought their product was worth it, essentially had a bad product.

Re: Learning From Quibi

#15
post #11
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite amazing that they spent that much money and not a single one got shared to anybody I know. That's a colossal failure. They'd have been better off splitting that money up and handing that money to every single performing and visual arts student in the US. They would have gotten at least one viral thing out of it.

What is shocking is not that everyone pointed out there is no way to share clips or maybe memes of shows right in the beginning, its after hearing this, they didn't bother to change this problem. Like you made the mistake, but its not hardware, you can change the app, and they never did? Or maybe they did sometime? but now nobody cares.

They're from the "prevent sharing at all costs" mindset.

Re: Learning From Quibi

#16
“ What I am describing here looks like a VC fund, but has some features of an incubator. I would not suggest that it makes sense to assemble a permanent team of developers and producers. But instead a light team of product experts who can bring expert-level development in when needed, and on good economic terms (either by paying fees or by sharing equity).” this just sounds like a record label or Hollywood studio

Re: Learning From Quibi

#18
post #2

An interesting piece, though I would have liked more about the failures of YouTube/TikTok and other platforms that simply aggregate user content. The author suggests a fund to help develop IP, but YouTube and TikTok don't need that. The YT/TT approach is "let a thousand flowers bloom and users/algorithms will pick the best". I think a lot about the teenage girl who went viral on TikTok for writing musical numbers bas…

Indeed, pretty sure youtube tried the whole directly funding popular channels back in 2012 [1]. They moved away from that

Honestly though, i'm not sure that people making essentially viral fan fiction videos is "the future" as that's already been a thing for a while.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_Original_Channel_Ini...

Re: Learning From Quibi

#19
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t really see how those three have any similarities. Quibi is similar to a movie flopping - sometimes happens even to good movies. ML seems like they thought they can get the tech improved but were in too early. Also happens all the time. Theranos was a scam from very early on.

No movie has ever had a budget anywhere near $1.75 billion. This is more like... making the 5 most expensive movies of all time, in a row, and flopping all of them . That's a completely different level of failure.

But nobody would pay for it if there was zero or not enough to convert trial users content, so they needed lots of it to engage and keep users.

Re: Learning From Quibi

#20
post #4

This post is missing some numbers to put the size of Quibi's failure in context. "Quibi spent over $1 billion on commissioning original content in its first year, totalling 8,500 short-form episodes and including over 175 shows." according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quibi#Content . This is a cost of about $10k/minute. (For comparison, SpaceX spent ~$85m ( https://craft.co/spacex/funding-rounds ) to blow up thre…

Magic Leap is not a scam.
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