Quibi — short for “quick bites” — offers short-form videos of four to 10 minutes of content from longer-form movies broken into chapters to serialized shows.

“What’s the next big opportunity in entertainment?” asked Jeffrey Katzenberg, founder of Quibi. “We’re living through another revolution in entertainment. Mobile phones are the most widely distributed, democratized entertainment platform the world has ever seen.”

Collaborating with A-list celebrities and directors the likes of Steven Spielberg and Reese Witherspoon, as well as major news and sports studios, Quibi promises fresh and original content that is different from what the streaming and entertainment industry already has.

“We fill a niche [other platforms] don’t. We provide content for people on the go,” said Meg Whitman, CEO of Quibi, who was also previously CEO of Hewlett-Packard and eBay.

Big Stories, Quick Bites

Referencing the chapter slicing of long novels, such as Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, Katzenberg outlined how Quibi’s short-form content will transform content consumption to fit into the attention span and free time of audiences.

“We are making mobile moments extraordinary,” Whitman said. “That means creating a technology platform optimized for people on the go, and giving them a great entertainment experience in those in-between moments.”

Instead of changing and shrinking content built for other platforms to conform to mobile options, Quibi’s content is built specifically for mobile phone use and is based on typical user actions.

New Ways of Storytelling

Though writing series and shows with breaks isn’t new to the television and streaming world, Quibi showcases a few innovative ways to interact and engage with their targeted younger audiences.

For example, Spielberg has his After Dark program premiering on the platform when it launches. This horror series is only unlocked for viewing after sunset — in the viewer’s time — to add to the experience.

The Quibi team also unveiled the new Turnstyle technology that will be debuting with the platform, which allows users to change the perspective of the show depending on the orientation of the phone in portrait or landscape.

More than just an immersive experience for the audience, Turnstyle creates new opportunities for Quibi content creators to show scenes and storylines in unprecedented ways and allows consumers to have more control over what they are watching.

Quibi Chief Product Officer Tom Conrad highlighted how Turnstyle is the representation of a true partnership between technology and creative, where the platform and content are created together, manifesting in content native to their platform.

TV Made for You

The Quibi team built the platform to suit user experiences, decreasing the amount of time spent scrolling through options and optimizing those in-between moments that are perfect for short quick bite videos.

The Quibi feed — the main screen on the platform — is where users can find content that is curated for them through meta-data. All content is also downloadable for all plans and there is even technology to make sure the stream plays under intermittent networking.

From left-handed scrolling to portrait-orientation-specific gestures, the Quibi technology takes into account the smallest of user details.

“We are obsessing over mobile video like no one else,” said Rob Post, Quibi Chief Technology Officer.
Katzenberg said that Quibi aims to have in its first year 175 original shows and 8,500 quick bites of content, ranging from comedies and dramas to dating shows and news.

“Quibi will inform, entertain and inspire,” Whitman said.

Learn more about how Quibi changes advertising and more by watching the whole Quibi Keynote from CES 2020.