“How are kids who are 10 years old when they’re 15 going to consume content today?” that was the question that inspired Adrián Garelik to create “Flixxo”, Argentina’s new platform for free access series. The service represents an alternative to YouTube for digital content creators, and an innovative proposal in the world of off-platform streaming such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or Disney+.” The objective is to find a new model of distribution and monetization of content, thinking about the consumption habits of digital generations and giving a twist to the models that already exist. The Netflix model is old and aimed at adults who have a credit card and commit to a membership,” assessed the founder and CEO, in dialogue with Filo.News.What is Flixxo?
Flixxo ? Photo: Instagram @flixxok
The platform includes more than 100 microseries purchased from the world’s most important festivals, 5 to 15 minutes long. In this regard, Garelik told that he attended festivals such as Buenos Aires Series, Bilbao Seriesland, Melbourne, Berlin, Die Sériale, Buenos Aires Series, Marseille or Cannes, and contacted different content creators who are betting on this format.” Today I watch people watching Netflix series on a subway trip and I know that series was thought to watch on a big TV, lying on an armchair. Something doesn’t fit. There come the microseries, ideal for a break, to be consumed on the phone. Microseries can’t find a platform and since they don’t have a platform, each is paddling to get an audience (and hopefully monetization),” he said. He went on: “Argentina is one of the strongest countries in microseries production, thanks to INCAA competitions and the commitment made by Universidad Tres de Febrero to produce this format at scale. That opened the door for many creators to join this move. In addition, he pioneered the creation of web series. Today many produce high-quality content, and they can’t find a good audience or ways to monetize. It is essential to create a platform oriented to this content, cured, grouped, and go out to search and generate an audience”. In total, he considers that they performed a “super interesting curatorship”, which includes titles such as the classic “Alejo and Valentina”, “Alt Esc” with Dai Hernández, “La Estrella Roja” with Julieta Zylberberg, Thelma Fardin, Ana Katz, Juan Leyrado and more.How was the platform born?
Adrián Garelik ? Photo: @flixxok
Garelik is a screenwriter and producer of film and television (“Wine to Steal”, “Locked”) and co-founder of RSK Labs, one of the Blockchain technology companies. He was one of the ones in charge of boosting the platform, together with Pablo Carbajo, blockchain specialist and founder of Riecoin and Javier D’Oidio, CEO of software development company EDRANS. As Garelik revealed, the idea was born in 2016, and they sought to create “a platform that would use decentralized technologies for content distribution (BitTorrent) and for monetization (Blockchain)”. Despite the pandemic, they decided to boost and disseminate their product as they consider that “development is already very advanced”: “We want to test our model with real users and because the content we were producing was burning our hands. Besides, we thought we could offer a free streaming service at this time when we need to get a little distracted without leaving home”.How does it work?
Photo: Instagram @flixxok
Within the platform, social interactions, advertising consumption and challenges are rewarded with credits called “Flixx”, in gaming format, which are cryptocurrencies that allow you to unlock new content and even exchange them for another currency (Bitcoin, pesos or dollars).” Flixx is a cryptocurrency and as such can be sold on the market, therefore you can pay a ticket to a recital or buy a helmet for the bicycle,” he said, following: “We are assembling some alliances so that users can use their Flixx to consume in the food yards of the shopping malls, for example, but we leave it in the background until quarantine passes.” In addition, it is a sustainable and eco-friendly streaming service, as microseries are hosted on the devices of all users who want to join, rather than being hosted on centralized servers.
“Videos from streaming platforms are distributed based on huge datacenters around the world. These datacenters consume 3% of the world’s energy, and video streaming accounts for more than 80% of internet traffic. When we watch content on Netflix, for example, we may be going to search for those content in a datacenter in Rio de Janeiro. With Bittorrent, a peer-to-peer information distribution protocol, I let people near me come to my device to look for bits of the content I already consumed. So instead of taking a trip to Rio to look for the content, I’m getting it from my neighbors,” he explained. This system, it indicates, greatly optimizes internet traffic and leads to a reduction in the electricity consumption necessary for the distribution of that content. Together with Greenstreaming they promoted a study on the theme “that for now is invisible”: “We want to give visibility and open the debate,” he said, “Why is it aimed at the new generations?
Photo: Instagram @flixxok
As the professional explained, the platform is aimed at digital natives, who live technology as an extension of themselves, are interested in ecology, are part of different communities on the Internet, know their codes, forms of communication and consume ever shorter content. “We think of an audience of 14 to 24 years, accustomed to social networks, the consumption of short content and permeable to new proposals and technologies. The reality is that these last few weeks, with the platform already on the street and the first episodes of Alejo and Valentina released, that audience extended to 40 years. The reception was very good, the users understood the model and feel it as a game. We are confident that we can show that Flixxo is here to stay,” he said. It is available on the official website, in the Google Play Store, and in the Apple App Store.
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