The Future of Streaming Is on Your Phone - MBrew

MEDIA The Future of Streaming Is on Your Phone FunkyFocus/Pixabay With two new competitors this month and two more in the on-deck circle, streaming feels like it’s reached a saturation point.  So...what’s next?  We’ve seen experiments in interactive content (Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, a choose-your-own-adventure movie) and virtual reality, but the next wave of streaming might happen on your phone.  The startup to watch: Quibi, short for “quick bites,” arrives in April under the leadership of former Disney Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and former HPE CEO Meg Whitman.  Users will pay $5/month for ad-supported streaming or $8/month for an ad-free version on Quibi’s app. The target audience? 18–35-year-olds who want a few minutes of entertainment while scarfing down Sweetgreen at their desks.  Each video will log around 10 minutes.  The confirmed list of creators includes heavyweights like Steven Spielberg, Queen Latifah, and Trevor Noah.  The goal: Katzenberg told Fortune that “five or 10 years from now, we’ll look back and go, ‘There was the era of movies, there was the era of television, and there’s the era of Quibi.’”  He’s not lacking confidence, and Quibi’s not lacking advertisers. Six months before launch, Quibi said it sold out all $150 million of its first-year ad inventory.  Want to go deeper on Quibi and other content innovations? Read this.