youtube is a popular online video site, and there’re several chinese online video sites as well.
so people will wonder are they just similar sites or there’re some differences?
1. youtube is more user generated, while chinese online video sites like youku/tudou have user generated, but also has many movies, tv programs. tudou ceo wang wei said tudou is youtube+hulu+hbo;
youku/tudou pay a lot of money to those movies/tv programs.
but there’re also a lot which are not paid.
the chinese online video sites like youku and tudou are pushing hard to encourage users spend money on these sites for watching latest movies;
although i also saw that in youtube now, i assume that’s not as big as youtube.
2. youtube is surely the No.1 online video site in US, especially in user generated video site areas; in china, the competition is more serious. there’re youku, tudou, qiyi, but there’re also sohu video, tencent video, sina video and so on; they all gain good market share
now we will ask, why? i think there’re 3 reasons:
1. making videos requires some tech skills, so the majority chinese internet users still does not have enough good skills to produce enough vidoes
2. many people playing computers now does not have a TV, such as the students in the universities or so on; but they do need to watch the tv programs. there’s similar reasons for online movies, people need to watch them but would not like to go to the cinemas.