HOLLYWOOD'S MICRODRAMA HONORARIUM : A.I. CELLPHONE ESSAY

The World Students Society - since over a year and a half - has been researching crucial businesses to create jobs, wealth for humanity, education and the students.

The Founders strongly believe that with !WOW!'s intellectual capital, and world class honours and name, many entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, will step forward to set up startups on super-short TV shows for cellphones.

In continuation, I have the honour to appeal to Scientist Dr. Masood Reza, Technologist Amin Malik, Filmmaker and Director Rohail Khan, Dr. M. Jawad Khan Yusufzai, Engineer Shahzaib Khan Yusufzai [AI], Enginner Wasam Masood Reza for more research and guidance.

REMEMBER QUIBI ? It was a short-form content studio and streaming service for smartphones that failed in a spectacular fashion in 2020, so much so that its name became Hollywood slang : That's a Quibi, as in a terrible idea.

Now, however, one of Hollywood’s most outsize personalities is giving the basic concept — a short-form studio and app — another shot. He thinks Quibi was a terrific idea, albeit with spotty execution and really bad timing.

And it needed the help of artificial intelligence.

Lloyd Braun, whose resume includes stints running ABC Entertainment, the Yahoo Media Group and the WME talent agency, lifted the curtain on Wednesday on what he and his partners are calling  MicroCo.

It's the first Hollywood effort to capitalize on microdramas, an addictive, bite-size entertainment genre that started in China a few years ago and has ballooned into a more than $7 billion business there, according to analysts.

Short vertically for viewing on phones, microdramas are soapy, scripted and serialized - video romance novels for the TikTok era.

Shows available on ReelShort, a Chinese-backed app, have titles like '' Selling My Virginity to the Mafia King '' and "Pregnant by My Ex's Professor Dad.''

Production costs are minuscule by Hollywood standards, with Chinese companies spending as little as  $15,000 for an entire season, analysts say. Episodes are a minute (or three) in length. Seasons stretch from 30 to 150 episodes.

Chinese microdrama apps have lately been gaining traction in the United States, millions of Americans have downloaded them, according to Sensor Tower, an analytics firm.

Analysts estimate that the genre will be a $10 billion business outside China by 2027.

'' This is a rare white space in entertainment : an emerging global format with no clear leader here in the U.S. ,'' Mr. Braun said in an interview, gesticulating wildly, as is his custom. [ He was once parodied on  '' Seinfeld.'' ]

MicroCo is funded by Cineverse, a tech-driven entertainment company in Los Angeles, and Banyan Ventures, an investment firm and media incubator run by Mr. Braun, Sarah Bremner and  Noah Oppenheim, a former president of NBC News.

Cineverse and Banyan declined to say how much they are spending.

MicroCo plans to make money through a '' freemium '' model in which people can view initial episodes of shows for free and buy credits [ or a subscription plan ] to unlock additional content, to find out how the stories end.

The still unnamed app may also run advertisements.

The Essay continues. The World Students Society thanks Brooks Barnes.