By Yang Yang
Published: 2007-04-18

 

Tengxun is also cooperating with Hunan satellite television on the "happy headquarters" project. This helps them avoid content risk, since most small-scale online video sites usually rely on themselves for checking content. "Youku has people around the clock watching uploaded content," says Youku's president, Gu Yongqiang.

Actually, Youku's use of guest uploads in order to gather content has already been influential-- no one expected that during the Shenyang blizzard, when almost all media was stumped and traffic paralyzed, a local blog's video piece became highly sought content for television.

"At that time our website hosted over 100 videos related to the Shenyang blizzard," says Gu. Television stations immediately contacted Youku, hoping that they could get in touch with the filmmakers and receive their permission to broadcast their pieces. This became a classic case of amateur filmmakers becoming involved with television stations.

Beyond the realm of personal entertainment, it's becoming popular for business websites to use video for introductions and promotions. More and more business sites are turning themselves into small television stations, with their products and services being classified into channels, says Guo.

"Haier and Sanxing cell phones are already attempting this," says Guo. "But actually, what draws from online video more are the wildly popular online forums. In the future, the internet will be brimming with content diversification, in the form of many types of video programs: short films, documentaries, DV video, edited video, advertisements, etc. And programs made from DV, DC, MP4, and various other formats will all become more and more popular... to the point that every person's blog will have video, recording their own programs."

In waiting to see what policies to use, the government is already starting to control both high-volume and under-the-radar websites, combing through online video. Aside from those illegal news broadcasters that must be stopped immediately, regarding content for entertainment and personal uses, as long as a few large-scale sites and companies with technology like Huoju's storage space and broadband are controlled, they can essentially control all of the almost all video sites in China.

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