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Popcorn Time

Popcorn Time Shuts Down Making It A Big Win For Netflix.

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Popcorn Time is once known as the “Napster of movies”, has reached the end of its usefulness. Since the app’s initial launch in 2014, the entertainment landscape has changed dramatically. When there are affordable, convenient, and legal alternatives, the public, like with music, has shown a willingness to pay for content. Today’s announcement was prompted by the multitude of streaming video services available to consumers.

Since going public in 2014, Popcorn Time has been avoiding legal closures due to various laws against content piracy. The crackdown was so severe that the streaming service on the Popcorn Time website was discontinued years ago. After that, it managed to stay afloat as an app. Because the service was based on open-source code, it was frequently mentioned by developers online.

Popcorn Time
Image source: tosshub.com

Naturally, this was a major source of concern for Netflix and other streaming services, which were losing money as a result of their original content being streamed for free. Large movie releases have also moved to the digital space since the pandemic began. One of the product’s developers told Torrent Freak shortly after the launch that everyone who worked on Popcorn Time was a big movie fan and that most of them had Netflix accounts. The developer believed that seeing a movie in a theater was the best way to experience it, but that isn’t always possible, which is why Popcorn Time was created.
The graph on the Popcorn Time website offers a unique perspective on the events that have occurred. Because it was not legal repercussions that forced Popcorn Time to close, Netflix and others must have brilliantly captured the digital content space for the average user to lose interest in the free service.

“We’re disappointed that we won’t be able to watch some movies at home. Popcorn Time is an experiment to show that you can do something better for the users with BitTorrent,” the developer explained.

source: https://www.techspot.com/

Naturally, Hollywood was not impressed with this concept, and the original app was quickly removed. Supporters persisted, and multiple forks were eventually developed to keep the concept alive. There would be a slew of legal challenges, but that would not be the service’s demise.
The Popcorn Time team told Torrent Freak that the service was shut down due to a lack of interest from the pirating community. One of the other reasons is the simplicity of the pricing plans. Netflix slashed the prices of its subscription plans in India just last month. The most affordable plan in the bunch now starts at Rs 149, but it comes with its own set of restrictions. It’s easy to see why people would prefer to pay such high prices to watch pirated content.

The team noted, “It’s time to say goodbye.” “Popcorn Time is no longer required in the world.” Though the battle for streaming giants is far from over, there are still a number of other places where pirated content can be found that need to be shut down. The way they handle these issues will be interesting to watch.

Netflix India mobile only plan

Netflix to Roll-out a Cheaper Mobile-only Plan to Target More Users in India

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The online video streaming services are taking over the entertainment industry, and there has been the rise of many of them Netflix being the leader of all. But amid the high competition, Netflix is also having some issues in regaining its customers. For the past few months, the company has also been facing slower growth due to the rise in its subscription plan prices, as well as the rise of other companies like Amazon that offering fancy discounts and original content over their platform.

The company has seen the lowest growth in the past few months, and only half of the expected number of new users have subscribed to Netflix in the first quarter of this year that just ended in June.

To be the leader in the filed, the company has to take some serious steps, to begin with, reduced prices. Netflix just announced that it will be starting up a new but cheaper mobile-only streaming plan, India being the first recipient of the new plan. The company revealed the news on Wednesday, adding that India is the biggest growing market, where it will be easier to get to most of the users with lowered prices.

Netflix India mobile only plan
Image Source: magicpin.in

“After several months of testing, we’ve decided to roll out a lower-priced mobile-only plan in India to complement our existing plans. We believe this plan, which will launch in Q3, will be an effective way to introduce a larger number of people in India to Netflix and to further expand our business in a market where Pay-TV ARPU is low (below $5),” said Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix.

According to a report, despite being the biggest population, only 2 million people are subscribed to Netflix in India. The company said that it may gain more subscribers if it reduces the subscription prices for the Indian users, The basic Netflix monthly plan starts at Rs 500 which allows the users to access Netflix on a single screen at a time. With the announcement, the company disclosed that the new plan will only work on mobile devices and will render a 480p picture quality.

While testing the new plan in March, Netflix offered the users a price as cheap as Rs 250 ($3.63) for it, but there has been no revelation on what will be the prices for the original plan. The company will be bringing the plan by the third quarter of this year in India, and later, it may also expand to other countries.

Dom Hofmann : The Founder of Vine “A 6 Second Entertainment App”

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In this era, where everything is becoming instant and fast, everyone wishes that their entertainment also becomes very instant, quick. Besides, these days, in the hectic schedules, who has the time to take out an hour to watch a TV show or a live comedy show to please themselves. People wish that their source of comedy becomes shorter and shorten in the time perspective and holds enough interest that cam amuses them. Such was the vision of Dom Hoffman when he built the app Vine which turned out to be a wide success all over the world and gained a fan base very much faster than ordinary start-up apps.

So, “What makes Vine so special?” you may ask. The standout in this app was that it made short videos. And by short, I mean, indeed very short! It produced not more than 6-second videos. This was something ‘new’ to the entertainment industry, which shook it! People went nuts over Vine because it brought a sense of an innovational challenge to make fun and creative videos in a time period of just 6 seconds.

Dom, born on 27th September 1986, is what we can say a creative entrepreneur. He created ‘Vine’ with his partners, Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll. He feels, Vine becoming the internet’s most chosen video making tool, was rather an ‘accident’. He said that they imagined the tool would help people capture small moments of their lives Dom Hofmannand share them with their friends.

Vine was founded in June of 2012 and before even the official launch, Twitter bought it 30 Million $. The microblogging site, Twitter, thought of it as the perfect combination to its ‘short’ text way of socializing. The videos made by tool were published through the Vine’s social network and could be shared on other social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Vine is short of Vignette which is defined as a short impressionistic scene.

The tool was launched on 24th January 2013. In this, the videos could be surfed in accordance with theme, trending etc. It gave a tough competition to Instagram and Mobli.

“It became pretty clear as soon we launched it”, said Hofmann as the app gained a huge user base in just the span of less than 2 years. By December 2015, the tool had already surpassed 200 million active users. He (Dom), was surprised and excited about the way that people were using the app in strange ways. “Watching the community and the tool push on each other was exciting and unreal, and almost immediately it became clear that Vine’s culture was going to shift towards creativity and experimentation,” he said. Vine’s symbol displays an inverted 6 if you look at it closely.

But it eventually came to an end, when Twitter announced that it would be shutting down the Vine app on October 27, 2016. But Twitter said that viewing and downloading vines would continue. On January 20, 2017, Twitter launched an archive which contained all the previously captured vines.

Some of the reasons listed by the Vine community for the shutting down of Vine services were that Twitter’s own uncertain future in social networking and also the increasing competition from Snapchat which rolled out 10 seconds clip service to broadcast in the app itself.

Dom, even after the closing down of the app, did not close on the Vine community. He has been tweeting recently about ‘Byte’, the successor of Vine. Byte’s logo was tweeted by Dom on November 9th, 2018, and said that ‘Byte’ could be launching anytime soon in the Spring of 2019. The successor of Vine was supposed to come out early but Hofmann said that it was due to some “financial and legal issues.” He also said that ‘Byte’ would function independently and not under Twitter.

Vine was viewed by the users as both creative and monetary. Some of the famous Vine artists are Zach King, the magician who earned more than 1.4 Billion views. Other than this, Amanda Cerny, Logan Paul, Meghan McCarthy, Dwarf Mamba and KingBach. You can also check Vine compilations on YouTube.

Dom Hofmann showed us that entertainment does not need two-three hours of time. Even a small amount of time is sufficient enough to show one’s creativity and bring a smile on to people’s faces. He, in one way or the other, made us realize that happiness can be found even in the splits of seconds. The 6-second entertainment inventor is all prepped up to bring another entertainment app soon.