The hot new trend in entertainment is trashy, (very) short-form soap operas on TikTok. It’s a weird business that has proven lucrative for the Chinese-owned ReelShort.
The app specializes in junky romance, revenge, and werewolf stories targeting young women — and their smartphones. It’s working: ReelShort in November actually surpassed TikTok on the Apple Store’s download charts, and its creator says the app is already profitable. The copycats are coming.
ReelShort was developed by the Crazy Maple Studio, which is Beijing-backed and California-based. And its reel momentum has resulted in some very reel profiles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. You can’t get very far into any article on ReelShort without a mention of the word “Quibi,” the short-lived, short-form app from DreamWorks founder Jeffrey Katzenberg that launched — and died — in 2020. Katzenberg blamed Covid for its swift demise.
The cautionary tale is now history,...
The app specializes in junky romance, revenge, and werewolf stories targeting young women — and their smartphones. It’s working: ReelShort in November actually surpassed TikTok on the Apple Store’s download charts, and its creator says the app is already profitable. The copycats are coming.
ReelShort was developed by the Crazy Maple Studio, which is Beijing-backed and California-based. And its reel momentum has resulted in some very reel profiles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. You can’t get very far into any article on ReelShort without a mention of the word “Quibi,” the short-lived, short-form app from DreamWorks founder Jeffrey Katzenberg that launched — and died — in 2020. Katzenberg blamed Covid for its swift demise.
The cautionary tale is now history,...
- 1/31/2024
- by Brian Welk
- Indiewire
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