Sourcing Stories for Hollywood: Sony’s Partnership with Wattpad Digital Publishing Site
Wattpad is one of the largest online communities for aspiring, up-and-coming and established writers who prefer to publish online.
Originally created as a mobile reading platform to connect writers to readers, Wattpad has recently caught the eye of Sony Pictures Television.
Sony and Wattpad have signed a “first look” deal where Sony gets a glimpse of Wattpad’s catalog of uploaded stories, seeing which may be adaptable to the big screen. Wattpad may let Sony know when a certain project has the right plot, following and success for TV series potential.
Wattpad has announced that both companies will “work together to identify and develop popular narratives from the half a billion story uploads that have been shared on Wattpad.”
In addition, Sony will have access to information churned out from Wattpad’s machine learning algorithm that scrolls through the site’s hundreds of thousands of uploads.
Wattpad’s Story DNA Machine Learning technology can identify new IP and storytellers with “exceptional potential, creating a data-to-development process that is transforming the industry with audience insights.”
Although originally a mobile reading platform, Wattpad has transformed into a user-generated content library. Writers can upload original work, amassing a catalog of personal writing.
For example, it was recently announced that Wattpad, Sony Pictures Television and Stampede are joining forces to adapt “Death Is My BFF” for SYFY. The “Death Is My BFF” series by Katerina E. Tonks is an extremely popular on Wattpad, with over 62 million reads to date.
As Aron Levitz, Head of Wattpad Studios notes, “Our entertainment partners all over the world have seen the power of our data-backed approach to IP discovery and development… The stories and diverse voices on Wattpad deserve to be heard all over the world. And our partnership with Sony does just that: bringing Wattpad stories to new and existing fans all over the planet.”
