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Much Ado About Tudou

Posted by: Reena Jana on August 02

Have you checked out Tudou.com, the Chinese video-sharing site? Yeah, yeah, the “Chinese YouTube.” Its name means “potato” in Mandarin – as in “couch potato,” according to the company’s boilerplate descriptions on press releases.

It’s been around since 2005, but is gaining steam. Currently, 40 million Chinese Internet users are watching more than 1.2 billion videos each month on Tudou (according to Nielsen NetRatings). And Tudou recently announced that it will also air ads –a future source of revenue.

What’s on Tudou? Yes, there are bootlegged episodes of TV shows such as Survivor or clips from movies such as Spider-Man -– which begs the question, how will American entertainment companies deal with this? At the same time, Tudou is a fun window into what Chinese youth are wearing, listening to, watching, posting online, and how they decorate their apartments and bedrooms. It’s potentially a trend-watching or market-research tool for, well, couch potatoes.

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Reader Comments

MENG

August 3, 2007 03:40 PM

YES, I DO TUDOU, AND LOVE WHAT IT OFFERS. I WATCH CHINESE OPERA AND NEWS REEL FROM CHINA. IT HAS ITEMS THERE THAT YOUTUBE DON'T HAVE. VERY ENJOYABLE.

erin brocowich

August 4, 2007 08:53 PM

I think when the corporations clamp down harder on YouTube, regarding copy-right issues, it will lose some of its appeal. I have discovered some very interesting things on Tudou.com and it's the great picture and sound quality of those "illegal" whole movies, that you can find if you use the right search tactics. Once you find a movie title, it will stream the whole movie with almost no interuption. Americans are starving for "free" and immediate access to this type of format but amazingly there is no place to find it over the internet without having to download silly programs and eating up precious hard drive space and paying silly fees. I think it's ironic that the celebrities in the USA flash their wealth and arrogance, but quickly jump to sue when they may lose a few dollars.

coco

August 5, 2007 07:15 AM

Tudou.com is good website. You always can find some nice video from it. And you also can upload some video to tudou. If you become a member of tudou, you will have a storage of 2GB that you can keep your favorite videos.

ll

August 15, 2007 11:42 AM

Most Americans use it to upload movies so companies won't know about it.

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