Upcoming launch of movie streaming service Quibi

guest · Jul 8, 2020

Quibi reportedly lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired
The struggling streaming video platform has a not-so-great conversion rate
July 8, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/8/2...count-free-trial-paying-users-conversion-rate

Streaming service Quibi only managed to convert a little under 10 percent of its early wave of users into paying subscribers, says mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower.

[...] the short-form video platform signed up about 910,000 users in its first few days back in April. Of those users, only about 72,000 stuck around after the three-month free trial, indicating the app had about an 8 percent conversion rate.
That’s not too bad.
According to Sensor Tower, Disney managed to convert about 11 percent of the 9.5 million people the firm estimates signed up for Disney Plus in its first three days of availability in the US and Canada.

These numbers are not to be confused with the number of current paying subscribers Quibi has.
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That said, Sensor Tower is a reputable analytics company known for reporting accurate estimates and, in absence of concrete figures from Quibi itself, the picture its report paints of the streaming service’s business is not a rosy one.
Most importantly, the platform doesn’t appear to have shows worth signing up for, like the mind-numbing amount of Netflix content that gets added each month or big pop culture events [...]
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guest · Jul 16, 2020

mood said: ↑

Quibi accused of patent infringement for its 'Turnstyle' video feature
Less than a month before its launch
March 9, 2020
https://www.engadget.com/2020/03/09/quibi-eko-turnstyle-patent-dispute/
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Eko Denied Preliminary Injunction in Lawsuit Against Quibi
July 13, 2020
https://thestreamable.com/news/eko-denied-preliminary-injunction-in-lawsuit-against-quibi

Quibi has found itself in some troubled waters lately. A month before launch, the streamer had to file a lawsuit hoping to pacify Eko — an interactive-video company — over claims that Quibi infringed a patent they hold over a similar technology to the Turnstyle feature.
But Judge Christina Snyder in the United States District Court of California has denied a preliminary injunction against the struggling streaming service. The filing said,

“Based on a review of the evidence before the Court, Eko fails to meet its burden to demonstrate the likelihood of irreparable harm that will occur absent the requested injunctive relief. In particular…requisite specificity and evidentiary support and a casual connection to the alleged misappropriation.”
The case continues to move forward though with Eko having a deep-pocketed hedge fund hedge fund giant, Elliott Management, behind them.
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guest · Jul 23, 2020

Quibi now lets you take screenshots, but only with a special action
July 23, 2020
https://www.phonedog.com/2020/07/23/quibi-screenshot-special-action

Since its launch in early April, Quibi has been busy adding new features to its mobile apps.

Quibi will now let you take screenshots while you're watching a show. But you can't get a screenshot in the way that you'd normally take a screenshot on your phone, Quibi Chief Product Officer Tom Conrad explains, because the DRM in use by the app will result in black screenshots.
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Instead, Quibi has come up with a special screenshot action. You'll need to press and hold while you're watching a Quibi show to get a menu to appear. When it does, slide your finger over to the screenshot icon (shown below) and you'll grab an image.
This feature is still being worked on and improved and currently doesn't support captions, but you can try it now as long as you're running version 1.7 of the Quibi app.
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guest · Jul 29, 2020

Quibi Patent Suit Moves Forward, as Judge Drops Three Claims
July 28, 2020
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/quibi-patent-suit-moves-forward-1234718852/

A judge on Tuesday allowed Eko to proceed with its patent infringement lawsuit against Quibi, though she dismissed three of Eko’s nine claims against the streaming startup.
The judge also dismissed a claim involving two former Snap employees who went to work for Quibi, and a claim accusing Quibi of adopting a logo that was confusingly similar to Eko’s.

But the judge left in place the heart of Eko’s case against Quibi, including allegations of misappropriation of trade secrets and patent infringement.

“Eko has adequately pled that Quibi had access to its trade secret information, and produced a technology that is similar,” Snyder wrote.
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A Quibi spokesperson issued the following statement: “We are gratified by the Court’s decision to dismiss many of Eko’s claims, particularly since the standard for doing so is extremely high. This coupled with the Court’s recent denial of Eko’s request for a preliminary injunction demonstrate what we have said all along — this is a meritless case. We will continue to aggressively defend ourselves in court.”
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guest · Aug 5, 2020

Quibi launches a completely free ad-supported tier in Australia, New Zealand
Sounds like a testing phase
August 5, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/5/21355362/quibi-free-ad-supported-australia-new-zealand-subscribers

Quibi is beginning to offer a completely free tier to subscribers in Australia and New Zealand as the struggling streaming company tries to build its subscriber base.

An email sent to customers in Australia, shared with The Verge, notes that for subscribers in both Australia and New Zealand, Quibi is “now offering an ad-supported free plan so you can choose the right option for you.” The company is also rolling out a cheaper subscription tier — going from $12.99 to $6.99 AUD (roughly $9 to $5 in USD).
The company calls it a “significantly reduced” price and is rolling existing customers into the plan.

“No need to take action, just enjoy the extra six bucks,” the email reads.
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A free tier will hopefully bring new subscribers in for Quibi — subscribers that it desperately needs. There are some hurdles that Quibi will have to figure out. For example, since all of its content is under 10 minutes, forcing people to sit through a barrage of ads could become a nightmare user experience.
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guest · Sep 21, 2020

Quibi reportedly weighs selling itself less than 6 months after launching
It's struggled to keep up with its ambitions
September 21, 2020
https://www.cnet.com/news/quibi-reportedly-weighs-selling-itself-less-than-6-months-after-launching/

Quibi, a star-studded mobile streaming service, is exploring strategic options including a possible sale less than six months after its launch in April, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. It is also considering raising more money or going public through a merger with a specially formed company that could help it fund deals, the report added, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

It declined to comment directly on the report, but Quibi said in a statement that it "has successfully launched a new business and pioneered a new form of storytelling and state-of-the-art platform." It added that CEO Meg Whitman and founder Jeffrey Katzenberg "are committed to continuing to build the business in the way that gives the greatest experience for customers, greatest value for shareholders and greatest opportunity for employees."
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guest · Oct 10, 2020

Quibi struggling to find buyer after rejection by Apple SVP Eddy Cue
October 9, 2020
https://appleinsider.com/articles/2...d-buyer-after-rejection-by-apple-svp-eddy-cue

Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg is reportedly having a hard time finding a buyer for the struggling short-form video streaming service, after being rebuffed by Apple.

Short-form video streaming service Quibi is said to be exploring "strategic options," including the possibility of a sale, after failing to hit initial subscriber targets. Thus far, however, it has come up short.
According to The Information, Katzenberg has recently pitched the possibility of acquiring Quibi to several technology and entertainment companies. Some of the executives he approached include Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of internet software and services. Katzenberg was turned down.

Quibi was floated as a possible target of an Apple takeover earlier in 2020.
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guest · Oct 21, 2020

Watch Quibi on Your TV With the New Android TV App
Quibi reminds you it's not dead...
October 20, 2020
https://www.reviewgeek.com/57884/watch-quibi-on-your-tv-with-the-new-android-tv-app/

No one could blame you if you forgot about Quibi, but the company released an app for Android TV. You can grab the app for free on the Play Store for all Android-enabled TVs including the new Chromecast with Google TV. While the app is free, you’ll need to be subscribed in order to access any of the shows. Pricing starts at $5 with ads and $8 if you’d prefer ad-free.

As a refresher, Quibi is a mobile-first video streaming service. All content is optimized for viewing in both portrait and landscape mode, and for a while there it was only available for smartphones, leaving out tablets and TVs.
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The app itself is pretty basic, but that’s not a bad thing. The app allows you to browse and view whatever is available on the service, and the entire app can be controlled with just the remote. You’ll have three tabs up top: recently watched, what’s new, and search. If you don’t subscribe to Quibi already, the service offers a free two-week trial. You can grab the app now from the Google Play Store.
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guest · Oct 21, 2020

mood said: ↑

Watch Quibi on Your TV With the New Android TV App October 20, 2020
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Quibi launches CTV apps, but is reportedly close to shutting down
October 21, 2020
https://www.digitaltveurope.com/202...pps-but-is-reportedly-close-to-shutting-down/

The streamer launched in April with a mobile-only model, but the timing couldn’t have been worse, with the Covid-19 pandemic causing millions of its millennial audience to become increasingly housebound.

The apps launched without fanfare, and with only a quiet announcement on a support page.
The launch came shortly after a damning report from The Information indicated that founder Jeffrey Katzenberg may have already lost faith with the app.
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The report, citing several people familiar with the matter, said that Katzenberg has tried to sell Quibi’s content catalogue – all originals – to the likes of Facebook and NBCUniversal. More concerningly for the streamer and its employees, Katzenberg has also apparently told people in the industry that Quibi may have to be shut down altogether.
All of this seems an acceleration from last month, when it was reported that Quibi was exploring a sale less than six months after launching.
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hawki · Oct 21, 2020

"Quibi Is Shutting Down as Problems Mount

Quibi Holdings LLC is shutting itself down, according to people familiar with the matter, a crash landing for a once-highflying entertainment startup that raised $1.75 billion in capital.

The streaming service has been plagued with problems since it launched in April, facing lower-than-expected viewership, disappointing download numbers and a lawsuit from a well-capitalized foe..."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/quibi-weighs-shutting-down-as-problems-mount-11603301946

guest · Oct 21, 2020

Quibi is shutting down
The shortform video service had the shortest run of all
October 21, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/21...g-service-mobile-shutting-down-end-katzenberg

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.
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It’s not clear what will happen to the company’s lineup of expensive, star-studded original shows and shortform films after the shutdown. Earlier reports indicated that Katzenberg had courted Apple, WarnerMedia, and Facebook to try to acquire the beleaguered streaming company earlier this year.

A report from app tracking firm Sensor Tower back in July claimed that Quibi lost over 90 percent 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. (Quibi has refuted those numbers, claiming that they were “incorrect by an order of magnitude,” but it has never provided any actual subscriber counts of its own.)

The Verge has reached out to Quibi for additional comments.
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CNBC: Quibi officially announces it’s shutting down

Quibi: An open letter to the employees, investors, and partners who believed in Quibi and made this business possible —

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.

We will be forever proud of the extraordinary partnership we were able to forge between the best of Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
All that is left now is to offer a profound apology for disappointing you and, ultimately, for letting you down.
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guest · Oct 23, 2020

Quibi to shut down around Dec. 1, fate of content unknown
October 22, 2020
https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/22/quibi-to-shut-down-around-dec-1-fate-of-content-unknown

Quibi expects to completely shut down its serve "on or about" Dec. 1 and doesn't know what will become of its short-form video content, the company told customers on Thursday.
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TechCrunch: Quibi says it will shut down in early December

While it seems even Quibi isn’t 100% certain yet, they’ve at least now given users a rough idea of when they expect the plug to be pulled: early December.

As spotted by Variety, a newly published support page on the Quibi site says streaming will end “on or about December 1, 2020.” The “about” suggests that the shutdown date isn’t fully locked quite yet, but it should be sometime around then.
Will any Quibi shows find their way over to Netflix, Hulu, etc.? That’s still up in the air, too. “At this time we do not know if the Quibi content will be available anywhere after our last day of service,” the company writes in a note on the same page.
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guest · Oct 25, 2020

Was Quibi the good kind of startup failure?
October 24, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/24/was-quibi-the-good-kind-of-startup-failure/

Startup failure is easy to hold up as a type of martyrdom for progress, especially if the founders are starting out scrappy in the first place and trying to save the world. But heroic narrative gets complicated when the startup failure involves the biggest names in entertainment, dubious product decisions, and well over $1 billion in losses in an already very competitive consumer tech subcategory.

I was going to skip any mention of Quibi because, like me, you have heard more than enough already. But this week its shutdown announcement turned into a debate on Twitter about the nature of startup failure and whether this was still the right kind.
Danny Crichton, in turn, argues that the negativity was fully justified in this case.

[...] But let’s also be clear that there are bad ideas, and then there are flagrantly bad ideas with billions in funding from smart people who otherwise should know better. Quibi wasn’t the spark of the proverbial college dropout with a passion for entertainment trying to invent a new format for mobile phones with ramen money from friends and family.
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Ouch. However, I think this still misses the bigger dynamic happening.
All in all, Quibi and the debate around it might ultimately make future companies a little better.
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guest · Oct 31, 2020

Eko Wants Quibi to Pay At Least $96.5M in Damages, Asks Court to Freeze Assets Related to Turnstyle Tech
October 29, 2020
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/eko-quibi-96-5-million-damages-lawsuit-1234818775/

Eko is seeking a payout of at least $96.5 million from Quibi — which is shutting down after founder Jeffrey Katzenberg acknowledged the mobile-video startup isn’t viable — for allegedly infringing Eko’s intellectual property.

As part of its bid to get paid, interactive-video firm Eko on Wednesday filed an ex parte application asking a federal district court in California to issue a temporary restraining order “preserving the status quo by freezing Defendant Quibi Holdings, LLC’s (‘Quibi’) bank accounts and assets related to the intellectual property at issue in this case.” The filing is the latest from Eko in its litigation targeting Quibi’s Turnstyle mobile-viewing feature.
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Eko, whose backers include Walmart, sued Quibi earlier this year. The lawsuit alleges that Quibi’s Turnstyle feature infringed several Eko-owned patents and that Quibi stole trade secrets.
According to its Oct. 28 motion, Eko estimated the value of the IP that Quibi “misappropriated and infringed” to be at least $96.5 million, or at least $101.9 million when factoring in prejudgment interest and fees.

As part of its litigation, Eko has asked the court to reassign ownership of Quibi’s ‘926 patent to Eko. Eko further alleges that Quibi has filed at least five still-pending patent applications “based upon Eko’s technology.”
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guest · Dec 1, 2020

Quibi Is Officially Dead
December 1, 2020
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/quibi-officially-shuts-down-1234842926/

As previously announced, the Quibi app as of Tuesday (Dec. 1) is no longer operable — marking the quick and quiet end of Jeffrey Katzenberg’s ill-fated $1.75 billion quest to carve out a new corner of the subscription streaming-video market.
The Quibi app will remain on users’ devices until they delete it. However, the app no longer allows users to sign in (returning an error message if they try to) or access any Quibi content.
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As of the third quarter of 2020, Quibi reached 710,000 subscriber households, down from 1.1 million the prior quarter, according to estimates from research firm Kantar. Quibi had cost $4.99 (with ads) and $7.99 (without ads) per month.

Now that its streaming service has passed into the dustbin of history, Quibi is engaged in the final stages of winding down the business.
Industry observers believe Katzenberg, who had achieved major success as a movie mogul prior to launching Quibi, will keep his head down for the time being.

“I think he will go off the grid for a while to lick his wounds,” one media exec said. “This one must be very painful for him, because it was so high profile — and it failed so fast.”
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guest · Dec 5, 2020

Quibi: Why did the video app go so wrong?
December 5, 2020
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55154808

At the start of 2020, it was seen by some as the future of "snackable" smartphone entertainment.
And the firm spent hundreds of million of dollars of the near $2bn (£1.5bn) it had raised to create an library of exclusive short, bite-sized content.

But somewhere along the way things went very wrong.
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I spoke to three of Quibi's content creators.
They all still work in the industry, and so asked to remain anonymous.
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guest · Jan 4, 2021

Quibi reportedly in talks to sell its shows to Roku
Could Quibi’s content find a new home?
January 3, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/3/22212447/quibi-roku-content-deal-acquisition-report-wsj

Failed mobile-first streaming service Quibi is in advanced discussions to sell the rights to its content library to Roku, according to The Wall Street Journal. The report doesn’t indicate a potential price for the acquisition, and notes that the two parties may not reach a deal.

If it were to happen, the deal could give the Roku Channel exclusive access to Quibi’s slate of programming. None of Quibi’s shows ever really took off, but Roku may feel that the content would stand a better chance when available on the best-selling streaming devices in the US.
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guest · Jan 8, 2021

Roku acquires Quibi’s content
January 8, 2021
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/08/roku-acquires-quibis-content/

Quibi is dead, but its shows will live on.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Roku was in talks to acquire the short-form video service’s content. And this morning, Roku announced that it has indeed reached a deal for the exclusive distribution rights to all of Quibi’s programs.
Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“Today’s announcement marks a rare opportunity to acquire compelling original content that features some of the biggest names in entertainment,” said Roku’s vice president of programming Rob Holmes in a statement.
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Roku said it will make this content available for free with ads on The Roku Channel. That doesn’t just include the shows that were previously available on Quibi, but also “more than a dozen” programs making “their exclusive debut on The Roku Channel” — in other words, they were created for the service but unreleased due to the app’s shutdown.
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guest · Jan 13, 2021

Roku Didn’t Buy Quibi’s Turnstyle Technology, Which Is Still Embroiled in a Legal Fight
January 13, 2021
https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/quibi-eko-litigation-turnstyle-technology-1234884702/

In a ruling Dec. 30 (which was unsealed in redacted form Jan. 8), the federal judge hearing the case denied Eko’s motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to freeze Quibi’s financial assets, finding that “Eko has not shown it will more likely than not succeed on its [patent] infringement claims.”

In addition, and perhaps more significantly, Snyder found there was “sufficient” circumstantial evidence to suggest that three former Snap employees — who had received an NDA briefing from Eko CEO Yoni Block on Eko’s interactive-video tech before joining Quibi — had engaged in theft of trade secrets.

“The Court agrees that the weight of circumstantial evidence is sufficient at this stage to suggest the Snapchat-turned-Quibi employees took the ORTS method [Eko’s Optimized Real Time Switching technology] with them to Quibi and used it to assist with the development of Turnstyle,” Snyder wrote in the Dec. 30 decision.
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guest · Sep 15, 2021

Quibi will transfer its video tech to another company to settle lawsuit
The Turnstyle feature let users stream short-form videos in either portrait or landscape mode.
September 15, 2021
https://www.engadget.com/quibi-turnstyle-phone-rotating-video-tech-eko-174531610.html

The ghost of Quibi is giving up the Turnstyle rotating video tech that let users watch its short-form content in either landscape or portrait mode on phones. A company called Eko filed a lawsuit over the feature a month before Quibi's ill-fated launch. Eko accused Quibi of patent infringement and claimed it used stolen trade secrets to build the tech.

The companies have settled their legal claims against each other, and Quibi is transferring the Turnstyle tech and intellectual property to Eko. The financial terms of their settlement haven't been disclosed, as Variety notes. Eko sought over $100 million in damages from Quibi.

“We are satisfied with the outcome of this litigation, and proud of the independently created contributions of Quibi and its engineering team to content presentation technology,” Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg said.
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The settlement is another nail in the coffin for a big, expensive, failure of a bet on mobile streaming. Quibi was designed for on-the-go viewing, but it launched in the midst of a pandemic, when most people weren't moving around. Still, at least we'll always have memories of "The Golden Arm."
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