Quibi Quick Death

The new mobile app that offers video bites, as its name derive from -that is “quick” and “bites”- is also don’t last and gone “quickly”. After six months of launching since April 2020,it is now shutting down.

The reason for its failure is its wrong timing of COVID-19 pandemic or its mediocre said contents according to the news.

“Much like its content, Quibi didn't last very long. Quibi, the app that staked its future on short videos, is shutting down just six months after it launched, the company announced Wednesday."We started with the idea to create the next generation of storytelling and because of you, we were able to create and deliver the best version of what we imagined Quibi to be," co-founders Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman wrote in an open letter. "So it is with an incredibly heavy heart that today we are announcing that we are winding down the business and looking to sell its content and technology assets."” (CNN)

“Quibi — the shortform mobile-focused streaming service — is shutting down after just over six months of operation, making it one of the shortest-lived streaming services to date, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company since confirmed that it’ll be shutting down in a Medium post from Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman. “We feel that we’ve exhausted all our options. As a result we have reluctantly come to the difficult decision to wind down the business, return cash to our shareholders, and say goodbye to our colleagues with grace,” the announcement reads.” (The Verge)

“Quibi launched on April 6th, 2020, just over six months ago, with two plans: $4.99 (with ads) or $7.99 (ad free). The company sought to distinguish itself by focusing exclusively on mobile devices at launch, complete with an innovative system where each show was filmed and edited in both portrait and landscape formats, allowing it to be viewed in any orientation on a smartphone. There was no free option, outside of a lengthy free trial, and no TV apps until just yesterday, when the company launched apps for the Apple TV, Android TV, and Fire TV.”(The Verge)

“There is any number of factors that can be pointed to in unpacking Quibi’s demise: the launch of a mobile-only streaming service at the height of a global pandemic when users were stuck at home; the lack of any real breakout content that was compelling enough to tempt subscribers; or the fact that shortform video content has a nearly infinite amount of free competition in the form of YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms. Quibi itself is chalking up the lack of success because “the idea itself wasn’t strong enough to justify a standalone streaming service or because of our timing.” The company will be notifying current subscribers as to the final date that they’ll be able to access Quibi.”(The Verge)

“Despite its glossy, expensive production (and $1.75 billion of investment), A-list talent (including the likes of Chrissy Teigen, Kevin Hart and Steven Spielberg) and heavy marketing, Quibi was doomed. As Katzenberg and Whitman noted in their open letter, the service was originally intended to fill the little bits of time people have waiting in line at Starbucks or sitting on a bus for a commute. The changes wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically reduced the demand for entertainment while out and about. But if Quibi had launched in an alternate version of 2020 where the pandemic never happened, it likely still would have failed. The concept of expensively produced "quick bites" of programming ("Quibi" is a portmanteau of the phrase) sounds appealing, but in practice, Quibi did not speak to any audience, either with its content or its technology.”(USA Today)

“The first problem was that the shows were bad. Sure there were some that were fun…. but most were mediocre or downright awful. There was nothing on the platform that was better than content available for free on TikTok or YouTube. The technology that let you flip your phone vertically or horizontally without losing the picture was cool, but it wasn't that much better than TV series on Snapchat, which are designed for vertical video. While the videos were all 10 minutes or less, the series mostly paused the narrative at the end of episodes rather than coming up with any kind of satisfactory ending. There was no story reason for anything to be that short for most of these series and "movies in chapters." Viewers can pause a Netflix show 10 minutes in and come back to it later, if they want. Short, quick videos designed to only be watched on a phone would naturally appeal to a younger, tech-savvy audience, right? But Quibi seemed to not understand that demographic. Screenshotting, a huge part of getting a streaming show into the online discourse, was blocked on the app until very recently. How do you tweet about the weird golden arm if you can't easily share a picture of it? There was no way to comment, easily share videos with friends or grab clips or gifs. Quibi simply didn't work on the internet of 2020, one designed for sharing and virtually communicating. There might have been some version of Quibi that worked – one with a less silly name, internet-fluent content creators, more social media integration, and launched before a pandemic upended everyday life. But that's not the Quibi we got. What we got was an ill-advised, way overpriced and over-produced streaming service that launched into a world that had no need for it.” (USA Today)