Wattpad CEO unveils ‘grand plan’ for future

Co-founder wants machine learning to play a bigger role

When Wattpad Corp.’s co-founder thinks about the future of his tech company, he envisions using machine learning and data to tweak stories that will be streamed on car entertainment systems or through voice assistants like Alexa and Siri.

Allen Lau included these ideas in a blog called “the Grand Plan,” which he posted Thursday. It was released a year after Wattpad, a Torontobased storytelling platform, was sold for $600 million (U.S.) to Naver, the South Korean internet conglomerate behind the Webtoon digital comics platform.

Lau, who remains chief executive of Wattpad, is now plotting the company’s path forward under new owners and in a pandemic environment, where screen time has soared and Wattpad’s user base has expanded at record speed to reach 94 million readers.

Though users have kept reading Wattpad stories as businesses reopened, competition for attention is stiff because people are swimming in entertainment options.

“Entertainment is going through a period of disruption, where the amount of streaming content continues every year to expand and the need for original intellectual property is higher than ever,” Lau said.

He hopes to keep people hooked on Wattpad with a plan centred around machine learning.

The company already uses the technology to crunch data about which stories and writers readers most enjoy, but Lau feels Wattpad is only “scratching the surface of possibilities.”

He wants to use artificial intelligence to provide writers with more fan feedback, which could be especially helpful for those who write and release chapters incrementally. The information could include what characters readers like or dislike, when they stop reading and what passages are their favourites.

“The writer has creative choice, but knowing what the audience would like they can intelligently adapt the story and in a nice way, perhaps change the ending,” Lau said.

Machine learning and data will also help Wattpad make more calculated decisions around which stories get the print or big screen treatment, a departure from the current Hollywood model that often options books based on “gut instinct.”

Branching out beyond digital stories has been a key part of Wattpad’s growth since the platform spawned “After,” a steamy fanfiction series about a college girl who falls in love with a character modelled after pop star Harry Styles.

The “After” series was released in 2013 by Anna Todd.

It has since been made into several films and print books that sold 15 million copies in 35 languages, paving the way for dozens of other Wattpad stories to get the Tinseltown treatment.

‘‘ Entertainment is going through a period of disruption, where the amount of streaming content continues every year to expand and the need for original intellectual property is higher than ever.

ALLEN LAU CO-FOUNDER, CEO OF WATTPAD