Friday, April 15, 2005

Toodou.com A couple of months ago Gary Wang and I decided to set up an internet company (see also last line of Oct. 16 post for when the idea was born). The programmers that we hired worked very hard for the past couple of months, and today the site officially went live! The site toodou.com (Chinese for potato) has been tested for about two months already, but now it has been officially launched. Completely redesigned, with many extra features. The original idea was to have a site where podcasters could host their files, and where others could subscribe to them. After working on it for a while we figured that with a bit extra effort the site could do much more than just host these files. Actually our mission statement from our business plan for investors is now: Toodou aims to be the leading online multimedia network in China, with the largest content database that ever existed, to which anyone can contribute and access in the way they like. The site offers members a way to set up their own media channel (audio/video/games), a bit like a multimedia blog. These people can then post podcasts there, but also existing radio and TV programs, and especially their own self-made DV clips. You really can make your own channel, for example about your favourite soccer team, music band, or for example a broader subject like jazz. There will also be channels for popular television series, so that you get the latest episodes each week on your computer. What makes it different from many other sites is that others can subscribe to these channels. That means that each time a new file is uploaded to a channel it will be automatically downloaded to a subscriber[base ']s computer and synched with users[base '] iPods, mobile phones or other multimedia devices. The best self-made clips that users submit will be used to create short TV programs that can be syndicated. This can make some users stars! The revenues from this will be shared with the producers of the clips, so they will not only become famous but potentially also rich. Interestingly, last week a similar idea was announced by Al Gore, the former US vice-president. He set up current.tv for this, and bought an existing TV channel to put the self-made clips on air. We don[base ']t see him as direct competition though, as he focuses on the US and we focus primarily on China. Because the site is primarily meant for Chinese audiences, there is no English version yet (but we are planning to develop it). We have some big other plans to further develop the site, but I won[base ']t mention them here as we don[base ']t want to give the competition some good ideas! 9:27:37 AM    comment []