Quibi lost to TikTok because humans really like videos.Quibi picked dozens of creators, hoping it could get a hit within them. TikTok does that differently: millions of people post short videos and AI parses them and quickly finds one that is viral. It then promotes it and quickly everyone is entertained. Statistically, you have a higher chance of finding more viral videos in millions of amateurs content than in dozens created by experts.
Now, the TikTok algorithm has overtaken Facebook. A few days ago, I wrote that TikTok would emerge as Facebook’s existential threat. The future is short videos because people are distracted on mobile: “The total viewing time for TikTok in the U.S. and U.K. is longer than that for YouTube, and short videos will continue to attract attention,” App Annie, an app market intelligence company.
Today, the best Nollywood producer in Nigeria is Mr Macaroni (yes, Daddy Wa) who creates short videos of 2-4 minutes at least one every 3 days. He is pulling more influence than any Nollywood studio because fewer people have time for 90-minute videos. His clip on Obi Cubana with Don Jazzy was legendary (video below). That man is a genius because he writes, produces, edits, etc in 3 days with his team!
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People, short videos are for the mobile. If you plan to build for that channel, you need to think short videos.
If Africa is mobile-first, those launching streaming video on demand (SVOD) companies must think again if their main channel for distribution is mobile internet! Otherwise, it is a hopeless venture with no chance for future value capture, unless there is a double play strategy which can capture the value via another means (e.g. MTN making money via data plan for selling you SVOD). If that double play is not there, run away, fast.
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Ehmm, I think your conclusion on future of mobile based video streaming is hasty, there are finer details you didn’t seem to think through.
Without jeopardizing some future great business models in that space, when we talk about short videos and virality, everything is not about social media and turning everyone into wannabe star. We will still get tired of these things in few years, then yearn for more organised and professionally crewed video contents. Both Netflix and YouTube show videos, but we know the difference and their respective business models.
How do you produce Fast and Furious or Mission Impossible in 3 to 5 minutes videos, or you think there’s no market for them in the mobile space? There are videos, and there are videos, same way letter B is different from cow leg.
I won’t go into details on how it would play out, but there’s a great future for professionally crewed not-so-short videos; when the meal is ready, it will be served.
TikTok serves a different market, people have accounts both on LinkedIn and Facebook, yet what happens on both platforms are world apart.
Everything is built on narrative, if you control the narratives, you change the market dynamics.
Till then…
You do not fight data: every digital FREE content is built on engagement. If TikTok has more “hours” than FB that is what matters to advertisers. Provided you are selling ads, your engagement is critical.
“We will still get tired of these things in few years, then yearn for more organised and professionally crewed video contents.” – I am not sure about that because internet is not designed for that. The web supports unbounded and unconstrained supply. And the future would be won by those who have technologies to find value within the noise and that is what TikTok is doing now.
I agree, you’re making a lot generalizations on trends. Things like Instagram and tiktok are coming into a market which previously had non-consumption. They are new platforms creating new content producers in areas which it did not exist before. What we see that happens hitherto is that these new comers would try to enter the more established legacy market, which in this case would be feature length movies and theatrical releases.
Mr Macaroni’s Production team is not the same as Ebony life’s Production let us be clear, neither does he command the same revenue. Tiktok itself may try and transform to a universal pictures just as Netflix is currently doing by creating original content.
Let’s always try and think in terms of end games and not trends.
There’s no end game. There’s only Trends. And there’s a lot of data proving that.
Ndubisi is 100% right. YouTube, the cash cow of Google is already switching to and heavily promoting short form content through YouTube shorts.
What evidence do you need again to see short form content as the future when even Google did so?
Companies that don’t take the first mover advantage will die a slow death like Vimeo and Yahoo.
Facebook pioneered a category and won. YouTube did the same. TikTok is doing same. It has scaled that first and is capturing. Others can distort it and knock but it does not have to be on short video it is the king.
And besides, given Facebook-owner’s one-oasis strategy with a playbook featuring different platforms (Messenger, IG, WhatsApp, more eventual acquisitions) it has potentials to stay above TikTok in terms of hours.
You took the thoughts right outta my mind. ?
I disagree though, the TikTok craze will fizzle out in the long run, we’ll all be back to YouTube ?
You sound like one of the critics of the dot com beginnings.