🧟‍♂️Quibi's Last Gasp, Tiny Home Dreams,and Steam Deck Reality

Quibi's final move

Jul 19, 2021

Greetings! How are you this wonderful Monday?

It seems that ole Twitter is getting rid of their “stories” feature Fleets. Hopefully LinkedIn will follow suit too! Leave that game to IG, FB, and Snapchat. I think Twitter is better off going to war with Clubhouse haha.

I finished the last episode of Loki the other night and wow. I didn’t expect the show be so good. To be completely honest, Marvel movies were starting to lose their joy for me.

But Loki? Dangggg. I can’t wait for season two! I think the multiverse is going to introduce a lot of fun stuff.

Anyway, in other entertainment news, the anime No Guns Life is quite good. I didn’t expect much from an anime about a detective who has a pistol for a face, but it was worth the watch!

I do have a tad bit of an obsession with neo-noir-style detectives.

Annnyyway, while we’re on the topic of Japan, I’ve really been enjoying this Lofi mix on Youtube. It’s the perfect bop for cranking out work.

I made the funniest lead magnet for my newsletter. I took my Cashapp card and made it a website shoutout.

thelandofrandom 🐙 @land_ofrandom

I made my #cashapp card a lead magnet for my newsletter. @CashApp like it?

Let’s see how many subscribers I get!

Shall we hop on into today’s topics?

🧟‍♂️Quibi’s Zombie Corpse

I figured the last I’d ever hear of Quibi was the day that Roku acquired all of their content.

They’re now “Roku Originals” and they’ll go a whole lot further with viewership now that they aren’t trapped in film purgatory, like that poor comedy star wars show.

That was a great move on Roku’s part. Take innovative and interesting short film projects and let everyone watch them for free - with lots of nice premium ads.

Can’t afford Netflix or Hulu? You’re in luck! We have premium content you can enjoy for free!

Fun fact, the Twitter page for Quibi is now centered on Roku, as does the Instagram, and so does the Facebook page.

However, the Reddit community is still alive.

I digress . . .

It’s hard to believe but “The service received eight nominations for three of its series, including Die Hart, Mapleworth Murders, and Reno 911!”1

I wonder who would accept the Emmy if any of the shows win? Roku most likely.

I haven’t seen Die Hart yet, but apparently the show has been crushing it on Roku. Quibi’s billion-dollar investment was not completely in vain!

Unlike Moviepass, which spent millions just to make AMC release a 3 movie a week plan.

I really do wonder if Quibi ever had a solid chance. I thought it was pretty cool, but never spent enough time on my phone to justify the expense.

Maybe it would’ve made it in a non-pandemic 2020. Who knows?

I took a look online to see if there’s any Quibi merch being sold online, but couldn’t find any.

Josh Billinson @jbillinson

@Quibi do you guys have any leftover quibi merch for a big fan

If you’re interested in checking out some of the Quibi originals, head to the link!

Quibi

🏠Tiny Home Dreams

If you’ve been around The Land of Random for awhile, you know I have an obsession with aesthetic tiny and mobile. I’ve written about them . . . what . . . at least 3 or four times now?

Of course, since my wife and I have two tiny children, we need quite a bit of space - so naturally my eyes have turned to the topic of large tiny homes.

Also, why aren’t these things more widepread in the United States? They’re way cheaper than a normal home.

Here’s some fun models i’ve found recently from my Business Insider reading!

The Loft model by the Mint Tiny House Company has two lofts, as well as space for a bedroom on the main floor. You can pull it with a trailer! I love the woodsy vibes of this one. It looks like it’d be right at home out west.

Check out more pictures and details here. The kitchen has some really great modern vibes.

The Endura+ model by The Tiny Housing Co is one of the most innovative tiny homes I’ve seen in recent memory. As opposed to other tiny homes which strain to reduce clautrophobia - this actually has a really sweet open floor plan. It’s classified as a two bedroom, but I could see someone using the living room as a third.

There’s even an eco version that comes with a wood burning stove and solar panels!

Check out more about some of the really cool eco features here - and a ton of details about their other really cool one bedroom model - the Natura. It’s insanely open and on wheels. 😥

Now, for this last one - it’s a pretty epic 3 bedroom tiny home - with a deck! It has a pretty open floor plan too. I really like the wood paneling and slanted ceiling.

The kitchen is admittedly way smaller than my preferences, but that’s easily fixed by using the dining room table as extra space.

🎮Steam Deck Reality

Almost ten years ago, the PSP Vita came out - the heralded sequel to the successful PSP.

It didn’t end up doing so hot - and for years we thought the handheld market would survive only in the hands of the Nintendo DS.

Back in 2017, the Nintendo Switch came out - and the handheld market was reborn. From Breath of the Wild to Animal Crossing, the Switch has been a breakout success.

Now - a new challenger arises. Steam is building their own portable gaming console - and it looks sweet.

The best part about this is that you can play from your Steam Game library - which is basically any game but console exclusives. Oh - and don’t forget the joys and wonders of the Steam Summer Sale - which none of the consoles would EVER do.

Those little pads? They’re designed to be used just like the joysticks. The thing even has a gyro too!

Like the Nintendo Switch, they’re even making a dock too, so you can use it with a mouse, keyboard, that kind of thing.

Here’s the really crazy part. They’re creating it with open pc use in mind.

You can also install and use PC software, of course. Browse the web, watch streaming video, do your normal productivity stuff, install some other game stores, whatever. (Source)

You could use this as your main desktop or laptop with a few external accessories. That’s just mind boggling to me.

Every product feels locked inside a walled garden these days, but this feels like a wide open field!

You can game, use it as a PC, connect it to a TV, whatever you’d like! Add more storage? Sure. Install other things? Why not!

That makes it tempting even to me! When the PS3 came out, it was appealing to a larger crowd because it had Blu Ray.

This could hypothetically reach a larger crowd too. Don’t buy a new PC - just buy this, a portable monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse, and you’re good to go.

After all, it has 16 gigs of ram. That’s enough to run most anything these days - especially if you use it for cloud gaming.

Now I’m tempted. This might be my next PC + laptop. Hmmmm.

Check it out at the link!

Steam Deck

🐙The Land of Random

Those sweet sweet random links.

💯Ketchup Newsletter

You need to check out this fun marketing newsletter. Every drop comes with a ton of links to cool marketing campaigns, products, and news! One of my favorite links so far has been a neat font website called Oh no Type, and a wild article about Gucci’s art collab with Roblox. Go subscribe at the link!

Ketchup