Wattpad and Mediacorp, Singapore’s largest content creator and transmedia platform, announced a development partnership Tuesday morning. Using stories created on Wattpad, the companies will adapt scripted series and films for Mediacorp’s OTT service, Toggle, and free-to-air platforms.
Wattpad is a mobile app where users can write, post and read short, text-based novels. Readers can engage with the content by commenting on the novel or “liking” specific paragraphs. Using this data, the company can identify emerging trends within the platform — such as what type of content is being written about and engaged with the most — which it can then narrow to specific regions (i.e. what are readers in Indonesia or L.A. most engaged with).
Using Wattpad’s Story DNA Machine Learning technology, the two companies will sift through the content to identify and develop narratives from the half a billion story uploads that have been shared on the platform into TV series.
“This partnership again demonstrates Mediacorp’s commitment to reinvigorating our content and formats and innovating the very way we source stories. A nation’s literature holds up a mirror for people to see themselves and what binds them. With Wattpad, writers and readers congregate and give voice to one another,” Mediacorp’s CEO Tham Loke Kheng said in a statement. “Singapore stories have much to offer to our society, and we aim to uplift them from written word to national screens.”
Earlier this month, Wattpad signed a first-look deal with Sony Pictures Television, which will also take advantage of its Story DNA Machine Learning technology to identify stories for television. Both announcements follow a string of international partnerships for Wattpad with Huayi Brothers Korea, iflix, and India’s Times Bridge.
Launched in 2006, Wattpad has over 70 million monthly users and has received over $117 million in funding from investors including The Raine Group, Tencent Holdings, Peterson Group, Kick Start Ventures, and Golden Ventures.