The Renaissaince Site

Apparently, Tudou.com partakes in more than meets the eye! Not only are they a social video uploading site, a platform for content providers, and an innovating content provider, they are also the founders of the Tudou Film Festival. The second Tudo Film Festival took place on April 18th of this year in Shanghai, China. What differentiates this past festival from the first is Tudou's partnership with China Film Group Corporation, a company that has earned the reputation of being China's most prestigious film production and trading organization. This new union will create opportunities for participants to qualify for titles and access film production facilities, funds, resources and channels, which opens the door to China's film industry for aspiring content producers.

Another major aspect of Tudou's Film Festival was accurately described by Tudou's CEO Gary Wang when he said, "based on the experience of our first Tudou Video Festival last year, our 2009 campaign aims for a bigger goal to build up the value chain for Internet video creative talents, who are getting insufficient attention and financing at this point. Our goal is to expand development and extend opportunities for amazing talents and vitality that we have seen on Tudou.com, hopefully in real terms such as cash financing and broadcasting opportunities.”

According to Marc.cn, during the Tudou video financing forum, fifty selected proposals in the categories drama, non-fiction/documentary, music/entertainment, animation, and reality show were pitched in front of potential content buyers and investors from TV channels, production companies, mobile/new media channels and brand advertisers, simulating a content trading platform. Through this type of audience - content provider interaction, Tudou is creating an environment that has potential to change the traditional business model of Chinese media and entertainment. By not only allowing a space for audience content, as they do on Tudou.com, but also allocating funding to their projects, Tudou is declaring its continual commitment to revolutionizing the definition of Chinese online media.

A Co-Branded Fan...is a Synonymous Fan : )

As we've discussed in class, a company's "brand" determines their image
and the type of consumer they attract. Tudou.com has been quite successful with the image they project to their site users, and has gone one step further to ensure a larger audience. Tudou does a thing called "co-branding" in which it presents products, services, or artists along with the producing companies. An example of this is co-branding artist with music labels, one of the most popular being songstress "Guo Meimei presented by Warner Music and Tudou." Tudou provided Warner Music/Guo Meimei their own music homepage which got 6,000,000 page visits in the first 2 weeks of creation. This type of relationship between companies and Tudou allows Tudou to gain more diverse video users who could potentially become regular Tudou site users. Also, once these new site users become accustomed to using Tudou to watch their favorite Warner Music artists, the two names, Tudou and Warner Music become synonymous brands to the consumer = a Co-branded Fan...is a Synonymous Fan : )

Demographically speaking...

An important aspect of any company is "knowing your consumer," in order to expand your customer base. Tudou.com has mastered this better than any other social video-uploading site in China. Tudou's top competitors in China are websites, Youku.com and 56.com, that have similar functions and capabilities as Tudou. Youku's ratio is 0.74 male - 0.26 female, 56's ratio is 0.91 male - 0.09 female, while Tudou's is 0.65 male - 0.35 female. Although, Tudou's demographics are not perfect, they are more evenly distributed in terms of male and female users. This allows Tudou to attract advertisers looking to target both male and female users simultaneously or individually, unlike Youku and 56 who are only likely to attract advertisers that are looking to target a male dominated audience, therefore, limiting ad sales. Tudou's demographic gap is continually closing, and creating more opportunities for ad $$$...

(slideshare.net)

Tudou Collabo???

If there's one thing that Tudou.com knows about, it's content quality and convenience. Now, Youtube.com has software commonly known as YouTube Downloader which is used to, "allow users to download videos from YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and many others and convert them to other video formats...and to convert downloaded videos for Ipod, Iphone, PSP, Cell Phone, Windows Media, XVid and MP3" (youtube.altervista.org). Tudou also has a similar software known as Tudou Downlader which is a, "convenient freeware to download flash from video from Tudou.com...it can download several video files simultaneously, and show the real download URL" (freedownloadmanager.org).

Just as Youtube's software has allowed it to work more conveniently and efficiently with other online programs/sites such as the ones mentioned above, Tudou also has a similar opportunity to link with other Internet services. Because Tudou is still in its structuring stages in terms of it's relationship with the Chinese government, it is hard to say what other programs/sites Tudou would mesh well with, but the potential to monetarily capitalize on this capability is tremendous. Maybe we'll be seeing a collabo coming soon!

Tudou the Tiger

According to Chinese zodiac, 2010 is the year of the Tiger and also the year Tudou expects to break even. The Tiger is characterized as an adventurous leader and risk-taking animal, and I think that is an accurate description of Tudou's chosen business ventures. "Tudou announced it will invest 100 million yuan (US$14.75 million) in content and expects to break-even next year, thanks to the booming advertising income and expanded mobile business" (ShanghaiDaily.com). Tudou will probably be the first online video-uploading site to turn a profit in the highly competitive Chinese video market.

Chinese Internetional Relations

In case any of you missed CNN's coverage of President Obama's visit to Shanghai China's Fudon University (where I participated in a debate while studying abroad in Shanghai) you can check out some of Obama's views of the upcoming World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China's Internet censorship regulations, and Chinese Twitter use. These topics bring up questions of whether social-video uploading sites like Tudou have potential to lead to international Internet relationships (Internetional Relations) that can stiumlate economies with the lifting of existing restrictions on Chinese Internet. Also, with the potential free use of these sites for Chinese financial gains, how or will there be an adverse effect on Chinese regulatory and privacy laws. The Internet really does have the ablility to change the social structure and business models of nations. Below, check out some of Obama's answers to some Chinese Internet specific questions...Let me know what you think!


40:35

Bandwidth Bandit

Tudou.com, similar to television, has gone "HD" in attempts to make their video content clearer, crisper, and easier on the eyes. However, Tudou, as a video uploading site has gone one step further to better the experience for their online video viewers by changing bandwidth formats. For those of you who don't know what bandwidth is, basically, video bandwidth is a monitor's ability to refresh a computer screen, and high bandwidths allow more information to be shown across a display in a given amount of time, which translates into support for higher resolutions and greater refresh rates (CNET.com). Tudou "will migrate from Sorenson Spark format to On2 VP6 as their default codec [to] create Adobe Flash content. In addition, Tudou will standardize on the On2 Flix Engine software to encode all incoming videos to the site"(Reuters.com).

This switch delivers a greater amount of bandwidth savings, requires less computing power to replay, and avoids potentially expensive MPEG-LA licensing obligations. Micheal Zhao, the Chief Technology Officer at Tudou said, "[s]witching from Sorenson Spark to On2 VP6 we estimate a reduction in our bandwidth overhead of up to 40%, without lowering the quality of our published videos. The encoding speed of On2 Flix Engine also enables a greater throughput for video transcoding" (Reuters.com)). Tudou understands the importance of adapting and evolving in an Internet environment that is constantly changing technologically. With better video quality, efficiency, and speed, Tudou will attract more consumers and increase video and ad space...Bandwidth Bandits!!!