【英语财经】优酷土豆拟投资100亿元打造“网生”内容 China’s Youku targets user-generated content

Youku Tudou, China’s answer to YouTube and Netflix, is making a push into user-generated content. Censorship has put strict limits on buying foreign shows, and a bidding war for domestic content has pushed platforms to seek out cheaper alternatives.

Victor Koo, Youku’s chairman, said that the company planned to invest Rmb10bn ($1.6bn) over three years in “web native” content — original material from viewers and from smaller productions houses.

“We are already entering a kind of new era, of participatory, interactive, collaborative entertainment,” he said last week on the margins of a Youku developer conference. “Devices have made creating and editing video easier and easier,” he added.

Younger generations are more interested in “participating, interacting, voting”, he said. Last April Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce group, paid $1.2bn for an 18.5 per cent stake in Youku, the country’s top online video site with a 21 per cent market share in the first quarter, according to Analysys, the Beijing internet consultancy.

The trend in Chinese online video mirrors similar developments in the US, where over the past two years YouTube has hosted a number of user-generated content breakouts such as Grumpy Cat, which reportedly has made its author $120m in two years.

Meanwhile, online video has become an increasingly important battleground between

Facebook

and

YouTube, with the two US internet groups competing head-to-head for online video viewers.

Mr Koo said Youku has been following this trend, which is one of the factors behind the “web native” content push.

“Whether they are looking for fans, looking for fame or looking for cash, we aim to provide our partners with all the different tools to do it,” he said.

优酷土豆(Youku Tudou)——中国版YouTube和Netflix——正要向用户生成内容挺进。审查机构对购买外国节目设置了严格限制，而对国内内容的竞标战迫使各视频平台寻求更廉价的替代选择。

优酷土豆董事长古永铿称，该公司计划未来3年向“网生”内容——来自视频用户和小型制作室的原创内容——投资100亿元人民币（合16亿美元）。

“我们已经进入了一种关于参与、互动、合作式娱乐的全新时代”，他上周在优酷土豆开放生态大会的间隙表示。“各种设备使创建和编辑视频越来越容易，”他补充称。

他称，年轻一代对“参与、互动和投票”更感兴趣。据北京互联网咨询机构易观国际(Analysys)称，去年4月，中国电子商务集团阿里巴巴(Alibaba)斥资12亿美元购得优酷土豆18.5%股份。优酷土豆是中国人气最高的在线视频网站，今年第一季度占据了21%的市场份额。

中国在线视频的趋势反映了与美国类似的发展。过去两年，YouTube推出了“不爽猫”(Grumpy Cat)等一系列火爆的用户生成内容。据称，“不爽猫”在两年内为其制作者带来了1.2亿美元的收益。

与此同时，在线视频已经成为Facebook与YouTube日益重要的必争之地，这两家美国互联网集团正为了争取在线视频用户而展开正面交锋。

古永铿称，优酷土豆正在追随这种趋势，这是推动“网生”内容背后的因素之一。

“无论他们是在寻求粉丝、名声还是资金，我们都力求为合作伙伴提供各种不同的工具去实现这一点，”他称。

译者/马柯斯