YouTube能从优酷身上学到什么

    7月18日，对优酷网（Youku Inc.）董事长兼首席执行官古永锵而言，这是个好日子，他在阿斯彭举办的《财富》科技头脑风暴大会（Fortune's Brainstorm Tech）上正式亮相。优酷网已成为中国最大的视频分享网站（也是世界上最大的视频分享网站之一），并刚刚完成与中国第二大视频分享网站土豆网（Tudou）的合并。这令原本就规模庞大的优酷更加壮大。古永锵表示：“优酷土豆加起来，覆盖了中国80%的互联网视频用户。” 这一人口规模约为4亿。

    尽管YouTube仍占据着全球点击量最大的视频分享网站头名宝座，但优酷和土豆与其相比，走出了一条差异化的路子。优酷上聚合内容（即非用户生成内容）的比例达到了惊人的70％，而土豆网该比例更高。（事实上，有报道称，如果单纯就视频长度而言，土豆网可能是全世界最大的视频网站，因为其平均视频长度要比YouTube长得多。）正如古永锵所言：“中国从来没有类似‘美国最有趣的家庭录像’这样的东西”，所以拍摄视频并将其发布到网上的文化在中国兴起较慢。

    虽然上述原因可能导致优酷初期增长放缓，但在争取原创性优质内容方面，优酷比YouTube走得更远。古永锵表示，尽管该公司大部分收入仍来自广告，但已经开始从视频点播和订阅上盈利。他说：“我们在广播电视领域，最多占据了5％的份额，”不过，一家创建仅6年的互联网公司竟要与传统广播公司平起平坐，未免有些惊人。

    古永锵还表示，优酷正在开发独立电影和纪录片，优酷制作的动画系列《泡芙小姐》大受欢迎，现在已经开播第四季。按古永锵的话说，原创性节目对“我们的品牌战略而言非常重要。”

    译者：项航

    July 18 was an auspicious day for Victor Koo, chairman and CEO of Youku Inc., to take the stage at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech in Aspen. His company, already the largest video sharing website in China (and one of the largest in the world) had just completed a merger with Tudou, China's second largest video sharing site. Already huge, Youku Tudou Inc. is even huger. "In combined reach we cover 80% of the Internet video population in china," Koo said. That's about 400 million people.

    While Youtube (GOOG) still reigns supreme as the world's most heavily trafficked video sharing website, Youku and Tudou differ in important ways. An amazing 70% of Youku's content is syndicated, that is, not generated by users. Tudou has even more syndicated content. (Indeed, it has been reported that in terms of sheer bandwidth Tudou might be the largest video website in the world, as its average video length is much longer than YouTube's.) As Koo put it, "China never had an 'America's Funniest Home Videos' equivalent," so the culture of shooting videos and posting them online was slower to take off.

    While this may have slowed Youku's growth initially, the company is further along than YouTube in its push for original and premium content. Koo says that while the bulk of their revenue still comes from advertising, they are already making money from video-on-demand and subscriptions. "We are at most 5 percent of the broadcast television pie," Koo said. Still, for a six-year-old internet company to be playing on the same field as traditional broadcasters is somewhat astonishing.

    Koo also said his company is developing independent and documentary films, and Ms. Puff, an animated series developed by Youku, is a genuine hit and in its fourth season. Original programing, he said, is "very important to our branding strategy."