Quibi
I originally tried Quibi and forgot about it. The high production quality 10-minutes series made for a phone form factor are novel. The team behind the company is impressive. However the initial shows were not interesting enough to keep me hooked.
Quibi
I watched Chrissy’s Court and the Most Dangerous Game. Chrissy’s Court is cute. Yet, it is one of so many similar shows. The Most Dangerous Game packs too much action squeezed into a short amount of time. It overwhelmed me. I rather enjoy a slower build up. Although nowadays even Dirty Harry chasing Scorpio starts to push the limits of my patience. (Check out part two if you want to see it all the way through and want to feel lucky.)
When I have 10 minutes, I prefer to scroll through Twitter and watch the clips from the Lincoln Project.
This weekend I gave Quibi another shot. I enjoy that it is high quality. I gravitated towards the non-fiction shows: NBC news, BBC News around the world, Vox Answered, the Weather Channel, and the cuteness of The Dodo.
I also noticed that there are a lot of more shows that peak my interested as well: The Shape of Pasta, &Music, Cup of Joe, I promise, Gone Mental. I haven’t started watching them.
My first second impression is that this platform would serve me well to watch quality news and documentaries. I already tend to weed through YouTube for The John Oliver Show, the Rachel Maddow Show, and a summary of the daily news from NBC or ABC.
I initially though Quibi would become a paid version of what I already can watch on YouTube, including documentary videos. Or a Netflix for the impatient. No thank you.
However, I can see them become for video what Gimlet Media is for podcasts: high quality, short but not too short. I enjoy the 20 minute podcasts from Gimlet. A 2-hour Joe Rogan chat, or 1-hour Bill Burr ramble are no my cup of tea.
Where Netflix hosts the equivalent of This American Life, Serial or Wait wait don’t tell me, Quibi could become the platform for the video versions of Planet Money, The Gist, and 99% Invisible. I would pay for that.