A survey of video websites in China and America it's so hard to see

On the March 11 night of 2012, Youku and Tudou announced a 100%-swap merger, a move that was seen as a white-hot display of competition for video sites. In the face of the high cost of bandwidth and the pressure of copyright costs, there are content homogenization and the inability to realize the embarrassment of profitability, China's video site has entered the era of accelerated shuffling. But on the other side of the ocean, the American video site, which began almost at the same time as China's video site, is Segio: Hulu soon realized its profits; Netflix's market capitalisation has also quadrupled in a year, while YouTube, in 2011 's December, produced a rather stunning piece of data: The total number of sites on demand has reached 1 trillion times. "The gap between the two sides is simply too great to be miserable." ”

On January 12, 2012, the vice president of YouTube's global content partnership, Robert F. Kinkol, Robert Kyncl, at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, USA, suggests that online video may soon account for a 90% share of Internet traffic.

"Youku, potatoes merged!"

On the March 12 night of 2012, the news was wildly forwarded on Sina Weibo at 1000 times per minute, "even faster than the news of Steve Jobs's death." "said one Sina worker. This is China's Internet market, the largest stock exchange mergers and acquisitions case: March 11 Youku and the potato jointly announced that will be merged in the form of 100% swaps. After the merger, the potato will be out of the city, Thomson Reuters estimates the turnover is 1.04 billion dollars.

Video site of the big guys, also in the first time to stand out. Cool 6 founder Li Youshan heard the news, is running in the United States, he said: "Praise Koo and Wang Micro, this is the business reason beyond personal emotion decision, is also the state and pattern of change, deeply moved." "Archie Art CEO Gong" Long sigh of relief, Sohu Video COO Chun said "not nervous." "The industry is widely believed that the merger of China's video site patterns have changed dramatically, conducive to the overall industry."

But there are also objections, the original and news CEO, senior internet analyst Xie publicly said: "Youku potato mergers and acquisitions is a shameful record of the capital world, eating dead vultures." A company listed in a few days to sell, fooled investors, hurt the company employees, what can be blown? In his view, "This is just a dark deal between investment banks and institutional investors." ”

"I also think mergers and acquisitions are of little significance. "I can't eliminate other competitors in the market, such as Sohu and Tencent," said Lee, a U.S. stock analyst. Also can not reverse the Chinese video site, in the business model of the homogeneity of the drawbacks. ”

She thinks, the Chinese video website "Third party copyright content + Brand Advertisement" business model has the malpractice, "almost all relies on the brand advertisement, lacks the imagination space." This way of replicating traditional media, the internet has not played an advantage, can be said to be the least Internet business model. ”

The protagonist of the event, Youku and potatoes are tight-lipped.

The Chinese video site "war" has a long history, according to Zhang's words: "This is the most competitive piece of the current." ”

The price of movie and TV play has soared in the past few years with rocket-like speed. 2009, Sohu once with each episode 20,000 price, bought Zhaobaogang "My youth who decide". In the 2010, when the singular net was set up, he spent 50 million dollars on TV dramas. and by the year 2011, each video site is generous in taking out 20 million, 30 million, or even higher prices to buy a TV play.

Last November, more outgoing Tencent video to each set of 1.85 million of the price, purchase has not been aired in the television station "Gong bead" of the right to broadcast. This price has been overtaken by some TV stations to buy the price of the play. According to the music network statistics, the video network in 2011 in the network copyright investment, accumulated more than 245 million yuan.

Such a big investment, but there is no reduction in video sites are facing the dilemma-content homogenization, and has not been profitable. 2011 Youku Loss of 172 million yuan, potato loss of 500 million yuan. The reality is brutal, Charles Zhang predicts: "The future video site, will only survive 6." ”

At the same time, the U.S. video site is on the other side of the ocean. Hulu was soon established to make a profit; Netflix's market capitalisation doubled within a year of Wall Street. YouTube, in December 2011, produced a stunning data: The total number of sites on demand, reached 1 trillion times.

In fact, when Youku, potatoes to the United States on the market, have portrayed themselves as China's "Hulu+youtube", quite Wenqing color Wang, but also for potatoes more than a label "HBO." And when he Chen, "let everyone become the director of Life", YouTube's, has not yet begun to move. "Chinese and American video sites, almost at the same time, appear." "But the road behind it is quite different," Lee said. ”

In particular, video sharing, according to Bo, "originally in the same starting line, even China to be more prescient." But now, the gap between the two sides has been very different to the appalling. ”

The combination of Youku and potatoes bodes well for the Chinese video-site industry's shuffling period.

February 3, 2010, Youku CEO Koo (left) and Tudou CEO Wang Micro (right) announced in Beijing to build "network Video broadcast Mode", the two sides in the development of copyright to reach strategic cooperation. Two years later, Youku "ate" the potatoes in a 100%-share swap.

The contention between YouTube and Hulu mode

Hulu's luck seems to be the best. 2010, it was founded just two years later, the CEO Jeson Gillard announced the profit.

At this point, YouTube, the world's largest video-sharing site, has been in existence for 5 years. Chen the company to be unusually prosperous. That Google would eventually spend 1.65 billion of dollars to buy it in 2006.

"YouTube was not as hot as it was at first, until November 2005, when it borrowed from Flickr's design ideas and sharing patterns, and after the site was revamped, YouTube entered the breakout channel." Tudou is also starting to learn and use Flickr at the same time. Flickr, so to speak, is almost the spiritual originator of all content-sharing sites. Bo said.

YouTube did not do much earlier than Tudou or other websites, but it was successful, which led to a large number of video sites in the country to follow and emulate the emergence of a large number of YouTube cloning sites.

The biggest problem with open video sharing mode is that high popularity cannot be converted into cash gains. Whether YouTube or domestic potatoes, youku, are constantly "burning money", but did not find a better way to profit.

While Google is doing its best to run YouTube as a subsidiary, it has been very cautious about how to profit from YouTube. Hulu is exactly like a geek. The company, built by News Corp, Disney, NBC Universal and private equity fund PEP, became the hottest guy in the new media world overnight.

That's a little ironic. In fact, "hulu.com" could be seen as a public response to YouTube by media predators. "Bo thinks. When Hulu was unveiled in 2008, it did not look favorably on its "official website", which was founded by News Corp and its peers.

Hulu and YouTube two different modes of operation are very obvious, derived from the traditional media Hulu mode, to ensure that the content of the original program, to create a good environment for the advertising of enterprises, while the YouTube model with user-sharing as the main, there are too many uncontrollable factors.

' In fact, Hulu and YouTube are exactly the same in the profit model, ' says a U.S. stock report. But because of the video content and the way it is provided, "Hulu has a lot of genuine high-definition content," Lee said, "It's easier to attract large advertisers than the UGC content on YouTube." ”

Hulu has a better chance of appearing on the website the next day after some shows are played on TV. It's the biggest selling point for Hulu, even though Netflix, a much bigger competitor, cannot. Of course, Hulu can do this because of the support of several shareholders, Hulu's program is mainly provided by News Corp, NBC, Disney and so on.

Unlike the grassroots stage, such as Flickr and YouTube, Hulu insists on elitism at the outset. The video site, in Mr Murdoch's view, is just an extension of television and cinema lines on the internet.

"Hulu is an enlightened person within a traditional media company, and the limited response to the fate of the revolution is still based on control over the production and dissemination of content." This control will eventually be lost to YouTube. "Bo said.

YouTube's natural internet culture allows anyone to be a program provider, whether you are Obama, the British royal Family, Warner Bros., Pixar, Discovery Channel, Oprah, or ordinary people. "You can complain on YouTube that United broke your guitar and let United lose 180 million dollars, but you can't do it on Hulu." ”

This almost coincides with Wang's original idea. Equality and openness on the Internet are almost the most attractive places for potatoes. But after two shuffling of capital and SARFT, a large number of YouTube clones in China died early. In a dramatic fashion, potatoes returned to the city in 2012.

YouTube has been booming, though it has been slow to hand over its earnings statement. But Google is proud of: "YOUTUBE1 trillion times the total amount of on-demand, the equivalent of each of the Earth people have seen 140 paragraphs." You know, 1 trillion is more than twice times the total number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. ”

Now, winner is not clear. In the face of YouTube's dazzling hits, the company's CEO, Jeson Gillard, recently revealed revenue figures that were also very much in favour of the capital markets, which grew 60% per cent in 2011, with a full-year revenue of $420 million.

Netflix takes a completely different membership payment system from YouTube and Hulu

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar. Hulu established an elitist stance from the start

The revived Netflix

Netflix's story is more tortuous than YouTube and Hulu. As a formidable rival to Hulu, Netflix is the world's largest streaming media (online video) service provider.

I point out that online video in the United States generally has three profit models, the ad-paying model (which is represented by Hulu and YouTube), Pay-per-View (Amazon, Apple) and fee-paid by Netflix.

But who would have guessed that Netflix, a few years ago, was just an old man in charge of renting DVDs?

At first, Netflix spent a struggle, laying horses for traditional DVD-rental giants like Blockbuster. In this way, it has the largest number of members in the United States. But what's the use? As a sunset industry, Netflix has a market capitalisation of up to 1 billion dollars, and Wall Street even thinks Netflix is dying.

Surprisingly, Netflix was able to revive the dead.

With the development of the Internet, the consumer's way of viewing began to move slowly to the online, streaming media put the DVD on the Internet, and Netflix did not hesitate to seize the opportunity.

In fact, Netflix has been trying to get rid of the Silver DVDs, the company said. As early as 2000, Netflix tried to send movies over the internet to a home terminal. But with broadband technology at the time, it would take 16 hours and 10 dollars of bandwidth to download an ordinary movie, and Netflix would end up with no work.

After that, Netflix developed a set-top box with network transfer capabilities, but was cut off by CEO Hessens. It was the birth of YouTube in 2005 that really inspired Netflix to move on to the transition.

This new form of streaming media, by virtue of instant on-demand convenient and fast, quickly in the popularity of users. Netflix's team is naturally working on streaming media. Strangely, how does a DVD rental business change to a streaming media service provider?

At first, it's hard to say how to introduce a new streaming service to a DVD user. Netflix has considered a variety of streaming media payment models, and ultimately decided to provide streaming media as part of an online DVD rental service without adding additional costs to existing members.

Netflix has done it by buying old films and television programs with lower copyright prices and using their proud referral system to push members to the movies or TV shows they never found. Not only does it not produce significant additional costs, but also unlimited streaming media services, making Netflix's online DVD rentals a differentiator in the competition with blockbuster.

Netflix's strategy has been successful, as the original DVD-ROM has continued to grow, with a 15-minute membership in the streaming media business, which has grown by one-fold in a year, starting in 2009.

Netflix is not just on its own online platform, providing its members with instant streaming media on demand, but also by embedding streaming media services in Microsoft's Xbox360, televisions, notebooks, and mobile phones, into people's living rooms and entertainment venues.

"Will Netflix make cable TV history?" Americans are beginning to think so. Because, in any place you can imagine, Netflix can make its members enjoy the service, and it looks like they want to radically change the way people watch movies and television.

The old-fashioned DVD rental business has become a secret weapon for Netflix. The accumulation of customer resources in DVD rentals has also become an advantage for them to compete with Hulu and YouTube.

Now Netflix has launched a business in the United States and Canada-offering a 7.99 dollar per month free streaming media package without DVD rentals (all of Netflix's packages are free to view streaming media, the difference being the number of DVDs that can be rented at the same time).

To everyone's surprise, net F Lix spent nearly 100 million dollars on the Internet to buy the hit TV series, "The Mad Man". Before that, it bought all the licenses when House of Cards didn't have a trailer.

At this point, Chinese video sites are similar to Netflix. In order to scramble for network copyright, before 2010, Chinese video sites generally have to wait until the whole film, or at least to see the half clip version before deciding whether to purchase or not, but 2010 years later, the music network in the knowledge of the cast team, starring, and the production side signed the contract. By now, the time to sign the contract more and more before, more and more bold. "Man help" set the cast will sell, Wenli starring "Woman Help" is also set Zheng, Wenli's team, sold the right to broadcast.

In addition to signing the contract in advance, some sites have begun to intervene in the production phase, Le Vision has to 20 million into the "Qingcheng snow" production. And now a lot of video sites began the "class homemade drama" attempt, hope that through their own or with other film and television organizations, to create their own TV series, from the source to occupy the copyright. But China's peers are still a far cry from Netflix.

The logic of Netflix's business is: "More input brings more content, more content brings more members and more revenue, which in turn increases the input of content and forms a virtuous circle." ”

Moreover, Netflix has continued to invest a lot of research and development money in order to improve the Customer experience optimization recommendation system, creating a "word of mouth" effect in the user to enhance marketing efficiency.

As the company's content base expands and broadband technology advances, Neflix is wildly sought-after in America. The number of members rose from 10.31 million in the first quarter of 2009 to 23.6 million in the first quarter of 2011 and 129% in just two years. The number of Netflix fans on Facebook topped 1 million.

Now, Netflix's old rival, Blockbuster, has filed for bankruptcy. Netflix's market capitalisation has reached tens of billions of dollars.