Tudou

Tudou, Inc. is a Chinese video-sharing website headquartered in Shanghai, China, where users can upload, view and share video clips. Tudou went live on April 15, 2005 and by September 2007 served over 55 million videos each day.[1]

In 2007 Tudou was one of the world's largest bandwidth users, moving more than 1 Petabyte per day to 7 million users. YouTube serves a larger number of videos per day, but the average Tudou video is longer in duration, meaning the total number of minutes of video being streamed daily from Tudou is significantly larger - about 15 billion minutes vs. 3 billion for YouTube.[1]

The Shanghai-based service uses Adobe Flash technology to publish more than 50,000 new videos each day, including amateur content such as videoblogging and original videos, movie and TV clips, and music videos. Unregistered users can watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos, using on-line and Windows-based upload tools.[2]

History

Tudou was founded by Gary Wang and Dutchman Marc van der Chijs, whom Wang met while at Bertelsmann Media Group in China. The name Tudou is Chinese Pinyin (Romanized Chinese) for Potato. It was previously known as Toodou.com, and changed its domain name to Tudou.com in August 2006 when that domain became available. According to CEO Wang, the name comes from the English idiom "couch potato". He stated that his goal was to move couch potatoes from the television screen to the computer screen.[4]

Prior to Tudou, Wang lived in the United States and returned to China to work for multi-national companies. Tudou was originally conceptualized as a video blogging company and the site launched on April 15, 2005, in its current format, several months after YouTube.

Like many technology startups, Tudou was started on a small budget with a raw technology team. It was initially self-financed at about $100,000, then in 2005 raised a $500,000 seed round. Its first major funding round was in 2006 for $8.5 million from IDG China, GGV Capital (formerly Granite Global Ventures), and JAFCO Asia. Tudou's second funding was in early 2007 for $19 million and was led by Boston-based General Catalyst Partners and Shanghai-based Capital Today, with other existing investors participating.[1] The fourth round of funding was on April 28, 2008, for $57 million from existing investors IDG Technology Venture Investment (IDGVC), Granite Global Ventures and General Catalyst Partners, and also included a member of the Rockefeller family.[5] The most recent funding was announced on August 5, 2010 for $50 million from the Temasek Holdings and existing investors.[6]

Rapid growth

During the summer of 2007, Nielsen/NetRatings reported that Tudou was one of the fastest growing websites on the Web, growing from 131 million to 360 million video clips per week in just three months. According to a July 16, 2007, survey, 55 million video clips are viewed daily on Tudou, with an additional 20,000 new videos uploaded every 24 hours.[7] Neilsen's measurements indicate the website averages nearly 40 million visitors per month.[8]

According to Chinese tracking service iResearch, as of mid-2007, Tudou has over 50% of the Chinese online video market.[9] iResearch reported Tudou reached 95 million monthly unique visitors as of June 2009, and 170 million as of June 2010.

company type	Subsidiary
foundation	February 15, 2005
location city	Shanghai
location country	China
key people	Gary Wang, CEO Sam Lai, CFO Grace Wang, CAO Sarah Jiang, CCO Evelyn Wang, CSO Deng Wei, VP Anita Huang, VP Yongzhu Song, VP Yu Bin, VP
homepage	www.tudou.com
collapsetext	Screenshot
screenshot	Tudoucom.png
screenshot size	230px
parent	Youku
registration	Optional (required to upload)
launch date	April 15, 2005
current status	Active
language	English
website type	Video hosting service

History

Rapid growth

Funding

Recent events

Copyright and video review

Copyright

Video review

Technical notes

Video format

Bandwidth

See also

External links

References