Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 25th August 2008
3 COMMENTS 
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
YouTube has become one of Holland’s top 3 most visited sites, a study by Dutch research agency Multiscope shows. Two thirds of Dutch Internet users check the video site on at least a monthly basis, partly due to the network effect of the service (You know the deal, bored people sending each other videos during work). Apart from these impressive numbers, one part in the study report particularly struck me: the extraordinarily high average visit time, which is 8 minutes. Is online video becoming a substitute for TV?
Chinese TV threatened by online videos
In China, this already is the case. The country is the home of the world’s most exciting online video market. The government isn’t afraid to pull the censorship card every once in a while, there’s tough competition, as much rumors as videos, and millions, millions of funding and views. When I interviewed Marc van der Chijs, founder of Tudou – largest video site of the world with 35 billion minutes viewing time in January -, he told me the average visitors stays on Tudou for 47 minutes. “For young Chinese people”, he said, “it is a substitute for television”.
Will Europe follow?
So while the first signs of a similar trend are appearing in the Netherlands, the questions arises whether we Europeans will face a similar scenario in the near future. Comscore recently released data from their online video measurement service, indicating that 23.2 million French Internet users viewed 2.1 billion videos online in January 2008. That number of 23.2 million viewers makes up for 79.5 percent of the total French Internet audience. So almost 80 percent of French Internet users watched on average 90 videos in one month.
There’s of course one major difference though — European television tends not to suffer from censorship threats, thus it’s not as biased as in China. No frightened kids who run to the “unbiased” and fun environment of online videos. Though when I think about it, the quality of Dutch TV isn’t particularly high either. Will we abandon the couch en masse to watch four-minute clips?
[Via: Bright (Dutch)]
Written on 1st July 2008
7 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
On days like today it seems no industry is more exciting than the Chinese online video market. It’s like a soap opera with all the right ingredients: a government that isn’t afraid to pull the censorship card every once in a while, tough competition, as much rumors as videos, and millions, millions of funding. So here’s your latest episode with, I must say, quite a cliff hanger.
The millions of funding
Firstly, there’s Youku. Nobody’s exactly sure, but they seem to be the no. 2 video site (100 million daily video views). They’ve already gathered $40 million of funding in three rounds and announced yesterday that this number has doubled. The video site received $30 million from existing investors Brookside Capital Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Farallon Capital and Chengwei Ventures and added another $10 million with a loan by Western Technology Investment (former loans: Facebook and Google).
But that’s not all, as one of the other video players in world’s largest internet market also managed to get a few millions here and there. The Pacific Epoch reports that the smaller video site Ku6.com has received $30 million in series C funding. An employee secretly told them, as Ku6 isn’t very transparent when it comes to funding. They allegedly closed series B at the end of last year and received $10 million of series A funding in May 2007.
The destination of this money is almost certain, as Tudou (no.1) founder Marc van der Chijs told me that almost all the investments flow directly to bandwidth. He said that he could turn Tudou into a profitable business by limiting the bandwidth usage, yet then his competition would probably catch-up.
The censorship
In that very same conversation, Van der Chijs also mentioned that almost every censorship rumor isn’t true and just matches the way we, people from the west, like to see China. But here’s one thing that’s undeniable: 56.com (no. 3) has been off line for almost a month now. VentureBeat’s Eric Eldon wrote an excellent piece about this matter, and refers to several Chinese sources who claim 56.com has been taken off line by the government, particularly because they didn’t like 56.com footage of the earthquake in May. “We may never know the real reason why 56.com has been shut down”, Eldon wrote, “But if the cause is censorship, this is a tragedy for anyone who believes in the democratic system.”
There’s your cliff hanger people. Stay tuned to your blog to hear the latest on this soap opera where two forces clash on almost a daily basis: the money versus the government.
Written on 12th May 2008
4 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Last Tuesday co-editor Boris and Johan Schaap organized a dinner for Marc van der Chijs, a Dutch entrepreneur who co-founded China’s largest video site Tudou and the Asia division of online gaming company Spill Group. In Holland and beyond, he’s well-known as a true pioneer who represents the almost endless possibilities in China.
During dinner I had an interesting conversation with him about Tudou, entrepreneurship and enormous bandwidth usage. Van der Chijs came to China because of his job with Daimler-Chrysler brought him there. Yet after a while, Van der Chijs felt the urge to do something on his own and quit his job. “I went from a car with a chauffeur to a bicycle”, he told me. “I signed up for a six-month Chinese language program and started building my first company”. Eventually he co-founded Tudou, and this is where it gets really interesting.
Tudou is one big success story as it’s world’s largest video sharing website. According to Mary Meekers latest data in Morgan Stanley’s Internet Trends Report, Tudou (35 billion minutes in January) is 40 percent bigger than YouTube (25 billion minutes). An average visitor, Van der Chijs told me, stays on the site for 47 minutes: “For the young Chinese people, it is a substitute for television”. Competition is tough though, as other major video sites like Youku and 56.com also manage to attract millions of visitors every day.
As you might know, they’ve recently raised 57 million dollars. When I asked Van der Chijs what Tudou will do with this money, he replied: “Spend it on bandwidth”. No other site has a bandwidth bill which is as high as Tudou’s. He said that he could turn Tudou into a profitable business by limiting the bandwidth usage, yet then his competition would probably catch-up. So Tudou uses the recently raised money to invest in servers and its infrastructure. “We’re talking about thousands of machines here”, said Van der Chijs. Moreover, Tudou isn’t doing a bad job with selling advertisements – preloaders and banners – and preventing unnecessary money spending – “I fly economy”.
So take this from a man who knows what he’s talking about: to stay ahead of the competition, video sites like Tudou should invest in bandwidth. And one day, one day it will most definitely pay off.
Written on 15th March 2008
3 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
This week, Beijing-based research agency BDA announced that China is now the largest Internet market. With 220 million connected people they’ve outnumbered the US with 4 million users.
In this huge market, there’s an interesting battle between one YouTube rip-off against another going on. Tudou and Youku are both fighting for the attention of the 220 million online Chinese, and I must say, it’s one helluva fight. There’s of course lots of money involved, a government that cannot be trusted and even Mr. Murdoch comes along.
Reuters reported that Youku has partnered up with MySpace China. Officiously not for the money, considering that Youku completed three rounds of funding last year that make up for 40 million dollars. It’s more about targeting the local market. Youku CEO Victor Koo: “The partnership is aimed at driving Internet traffic to both Web sites and sharing online products”.
While Youku is celebrating this good news, Tudou is probably still a bit nervous. Last week our WebTipr from China, Doron Vermaat, interviewed Tudou co-founder Marc van der Chijs about rumors about a possible shutdown. The rumors seem to be nonsense, yet due to the loads of attention they got, the damage is already done. Van der Chijs: ““It’s hard to find out where this rumor is coming from but I am pretty sure the competition don’t have any problems with the fact that this kind of rumors about Tudou are created and spread.”
After a long search on the web, it seems like Youku is the most popular service. According to Nielsen/NetRatings the service has more than 100 million daily video views (December 2007). In the summer of 2007, Tudou counted 360 million video clips per week.
They’ve one thing in common: both are growing with an unseen speed. Youku had a 20-fold increase and Tudou grew from 131 to 360 million video clips per week in just three months. Other top video sharing websites in China include: 56.com, mofile.com, 5show.com, pomoho.com, uume.com and 6rooms.com (source). You would almost think that Chinese internet users are only browsing video sites. Just think of the revenue as soon as the services find a way to monetize their content and you’ll realize that China will one day be the largest internet market in money terms as well.
Written on 7th March 2008
3 COMMENTS
Doron Vermaat, Next Web Webtipr China
At the end of 2007, two Chinese government ministries, SARFT and MII, announced a new set of rules to govern online video websites like Tudou.com, Youku.com, 56.com and other Youtube clones.
Last night Chinese language portal Netease published an article saying that SARFT had made use of these new online video regulations and ordered Tudou to cease operations because it was suspected there was porn on the site.
Tudou is the world’s largest video sharing website, claiming three times the traffic volume of YouTube. During the summer of 2007, Nielsen/NetRatings reported that Tudou was one of the fastest growing websites on the Web, growing from 131 to 360 million video clips per week in just three months.
The article on Netease have been taken offline but unfortunately for Tudou the story already was picked up by several bloggers and quickly made its way into the English blogosphere with posts on CNET Asia and David Feng’s Techblog86.
In an email reply to me Tudou co-founder Marc van der Chijs says that Tudou didn’t received a take-down notice and that the story is nothing more than a rumor. He regrets that some bloggers do little research to back up there claims “It’s hard to find out where this rumor is coming from but I am pretty sure the competition don’t have any problems with the fact that this kind of rumors about Tudou are created and spread. ”
I share Marc’s opinion about the fact that many bloggers and even journalists shoot from the hip without checking there sources. I just hope for him this rumor will stay a rumor.
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
