Could the upcoming streaming service Quibi be the next big thing in entertainment? Well, it’s probably too early to tell if its focus on short-form content will actually be something that will have long term appeal with audiences, but it does appear as if the initial interest behind it is substantial as according to The Verge, the mobile app suffered a series of outages at launch due to excessive demand
Perhaps timing has been a little fortuitous for the new service with everyone stuck at home and more desperate than ever for new content to watch. According to the report, the company had load tested the app for what they felt was a high number of users and prepared for potential outages, but that even they were surprised by the number of people trying to access its content. Even though it might also be designed for consuming media in short doses, it appears people are also intent on binge-watching the Quibi library at the moment.
The streaming service had already raised nearly $2 billion from investors to produce Hollywood-quality mobile shows in “quick bites” that last 10 minutes or less. It’s an unusual approach given the already competitive streaming market and the existence of YouTube which seems a better fit for something like this. However, Quibi has so far gotten the support of several big Hollywood producers and directors, including Sam Raimi, and so it looks like it could be here to stay. Let’s hope its initial performance issues don’t scupper the idea before it can even gain traction. Even if you get more hits than expected, they could’ve still configured their service to scale accordingly, especially with cloud services these days. Hopefully, the Quibi team will learn from the lesson and adapt for the future
I’m personally not convinced on the long-term potential of short content but I can certainly see the appeal of of it, so I guess if Quibi maintains the quality of its shows, then it might just be able to work.
Last Updated: April 7, 2020
