Nowadays some Chinese video websites are not only trying to become the YouTube alternative but also trying to become the Netflix alternative in China, so you can see some websites are doing very complicated content businesses.
Related Topic: How to watch YouTube in China?
However, there are some video websites developed by Chinese companies which are kind of looked like, or once trying to become, the Chinese version of YouTube and some of them play a crucial role, greatly affecting the daily lives of many Chinese.
1. YouKu
| Website | https://www.youku.com/ |
| Launched | 21 December 2003 |
| Founder | Victor Koo |
| Headquarters | Beijing, China; Shanghai, China; |
I think YouKu once was the closest one to becoming the Chinese version of YouTube. From its name, we can tell that YouKu was initially targeting to become a video platform like YouTube and I have to admit that YOUKU once was so close to it.
However, as more and more big companies started to get involved in the video platform market, the dominant status of YOUKU was greatly challenged, from the top one to nowadays around the third to fourth position.
Still, YouKu is one of the most powerful video platforms in China. Their video content is solid and rich. If this is your first time visiting China and having trouble accessing YouTube, you should take a look at the YouKu which can give you a basic picture of what types of content are Chinese favorites, gaining more insight into the daily life of modern Chinese.
YouKu provides some quality original entertainment shows, the most popular ones like “Street Dance of China”, and “Dunk of China”. Also, possessing numerous copyrights of film and TV series is another strength of YOUKU, you can watch almost all kinds of domestic TV shows, series, and movies on YOUKU.
Just like YouTube, YOUKU values and encourages users to create more and more personal channels and produce creative video content, so you also can find various interesting Chinese-style entertainment content, which could remind you a bit shadow of YouTube.
2. Bilibili
| Website | https://www.bilibili.com/ |
| Launched | June 2009 |
| Created by | Xu Yi |
| Headquarters location | Shanghai, China |
Nowadays, Bilibili is certainly the Chinese version of Youtube in my opinion. This is a video website that is truly impressing me, not only because the user engagement is super well, but also because there are ZERO ads during the video watching, there are literally ZERO ads. Even on YouTube, you sometimes have to suffer some tedious ads for a few seconds, but in Bilibili, you don’t.
In my opinion, the main reason that Bilibili can be so successful is that Bilibili always sticks with its own style. Part of the reason that the “Second Dimension” culture is so hot in China is because of the content production from Bilibili.
Every day numerous Chinese younger generations are consistently creating various anime-culture-related content which is the main area in which Bilibili got involved from the very beginning. After years of development, Bilibili has truly built up a tide bond with its users and made a quality reputation in the industry, making lots of users with different preferences and hobbies more willing to come to this platform.
Bilibili nowadays has become one of the most diversified video platforms in China, attracting numerous young people to spend tons of time on it, including generation Z in China.
(If you want to know about Generation Z in China, feel free to check my article: https://letschinese.com/chinese-generation-z/ )
Still, anime-related contents are the main strength of Bilibili. If you’re looking for anime videos in China, you definitely should go visit Bilibili because you can find almost every mainstream anime contents from all over the world.
3. TuDou
| Website | https://www.tudou.com/ |
| Launched | February 15, 2005 |
| Key people | Gary Wang (CEO) |
| Headquarters location | Shanghai, China |
Except for the YouKu, TuDou was another promising website that could become the Chinese version of Youtube.
Ten years ago, three main platforms are fighting for the champion of the Chinese video market, which includes YOUKU, 56, and TUDOU. I remember that almost all video content were offered by those three platforms at the time and TUDOU, in my opinion, was once the No.1, being listed on NASDAQ in 2011 and valuing more than 8 hundred million dollars.
However, as its competitor, YouKu, became stronger and stronger, Tudou chose to not face the competition but seek for cooperation. In 2013, TUDOU and YOUKU officially announced the enterprise merger, naming YouTudou video company. The two video platforms were still operated independently, but the power of YOUKU kept spreading to TUDOU and eventually destroyed it.
In 2017, TuDou was officially transformed into a short video platform, which means you can’t find creative and helpful solid content but some tedious lame entertainment short videos. If you visit TuDou nowadays, you still can find some interesting videos, but the quality is extremely affected.
4. 56 Video
| Website | https://www.56.com/ |
| Launched | October 2005 |
| Key people | Zhou Juan |
| Headquarters location | Guangzhou, China |
My very memorable video website and I can surely tell you that it did have the potential to become the Chinese version of Youtube. Under the furious competition between YOUKU and TUDOU, 56 were always keeping low and playing their role in the industry.
56 Video platform, at the time, was using the theme color of YouTube, which reminded a lot of YouTube, and people loved to upload videos to 56 Video platform because of its friendly user experience, creating their own channels. When I was a high school student, I fell in love with street dance and I could find tons of excellent street dance videos on 56, which was so benefiting me.
What is funny is that 56 Video didn’t well manage its rich video contents at the time, which is gradually causing lots of negative content appearances. Until one day, the MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) asked them to immediately rectify and started serious punishments, causing 56 to lose most users and greatly affecting the reputation of 56 Video.
Nowadays, People seldom talk about 56 Video platforms. There are no many things to watch but some video contents are highly duplicated, lacking creative and original content.
5. AcFun
| Website | https://www.acfun.cn/ |
| Launched | June 2007 |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Current status | Online |
In my opinion, AcFun is supposed to be another, except for Bilibili, a Chinese video website that can be called the Chinese version of YouTube nowadays. However, things are greatly different.
Likewise, AcFun is not putting any advertisements in their video content, which is also the main reason that AcFun once was so popular in China. Just like the story between YouKu and TuDou, AcFun is defeated by its main powerful opponent, Bilibili.
The strategy that AcFun was using for the website development was quite similar to the Bilibili one, focusing on providing an excellent user experience and choosing anime-related content as its main area.
However, one of the biggest mistakes that AcFun was committed to be that it’s too focusing on pushing users to create content and ignoring the importance of copyright fighting for various TV series, anime series, and cinematic resources from third-party companies.
Later on, users soon figured out that there were fewer and less popular series and show in AcFun so they transferred to another platform called Bilibili, which possesses more copyrights and more resources. AcFun is no longer a powerful opponent to Bilibili. Once I’ve heard AcFun was struggling with its serious financial issue but luckily it survives now.
Last month (August 2019), AcFun just announce a 5 hundred million RMB investment in the original content production, encouraging people to work with the AcFun platform and hoping can regain some of the markets in China.
6. Tencent Video
| Website | https://v.qq.com/ |
| Launched | April 2011 |
| Owned by | Tencent |
| Products | Streaming media |
I know when talking about Tencent Video, it will remind you of Netflix, not Youtube. But you know what, Tencent Video has also been putting lots of resources on developing and looking for talented content creators. Except for those contents generated and brought by Tencent, there are also many different personal channels you can follow.
We all know Tencent is big in China. Many years ago, Tencent didn’t invest a lot in the video platform business, but as the mobile devices and the mobile network became more and more mature, Tencent realized the opportunity and started to get involved in the video platform building.
With crazy investment and its powerful social network platforms like WeChat and QQ, Tencent video soon grew to be one of the most popular video platforms. Nowadays, Tencent video is the top 3 video platform in China.
You can find many quality TV shows produced by TENCENT and imported from overseas and creative user-generated content. Although its user experience level is still far away from YouTube, I’m sure you will find things that make you feel worthy to visit.
7. SoHu Video
| Website | https://tv.sohu.com/ |
| Launched | August 1996 |
| Founder | Charles Zhang and Edward Roberts |
| Headquarters | Beijing, China |
Just like Tencent Video, SoHu Video also will make people think it’s not the Chinese version of Youtube but the Chinese version of Netflix. However, what you might not know is that SoHu Video actually is possessing many different personal channels and has been consistently encouraging people to become content creators, which is pretty similar to Tencent Video.
SoHu once mainly focused on providing various US TV shows and series, attracting many young Chinese users who are big fans of “Big Bang Theory”, “House of Cards”, “Breaking Bad”, and so on. The road to success seemed very clear to SoHu video at the time until China decided to limit content from overseas and help develop the domestic film & TV industry.
SoHu was hit so hard and immediately changed to invest in more original content creators, trying to stop the losing market share. I can’t say that the above accidence is the cause for SoHu never re-gaining its prime ever again, but it’s definitely one of the main reasons.
Although nowadays we can watch US TV shows in SoHu again, the experience is never the same regarding the quantity and quality. Other platforms like iQiYi and Tencent Video are offering a lot more versatile content as well.
8. KU6
| Website | https://www.ku6.com/index |
| Launched | 2006 |
| Key people | Fang Du |
| Headquarters | Beijing, China |
Once targeting to replace YouKu by mainly producing entertainment content, KU6 did make a buzz in the market. I remember there were lots of unique resources that only could be found in KU6.
Established in 2006, KU6 video platform, just like other ones, was targeting to become the Chinese version of YouTube, offering Chinese users a broad range of contents including news, entertainment sports, user-generated content, and so on.
In 2007, KU6 reached a business cooperation deal with Baidu and receiving 10 million US dollars from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and DT Capital Partners. At the time, most of the videos posted on the KU6 are short-form videos submitted via users and were doing very well.
However, as KU6 was received the license issued by SARFT and then founded the “KU6 Media Theater” in 2010, KU6’s YouTube dream was gradually distracting, becoming a Netflix and Hulu-liked the website.
I’m not sure this transformation is a successful one. At least today, I don’t see KU6 have any competitiveness in the market. If you go visit the KU6 website now, you will just see another short video platform, nothing impressive.
9. Baidu Video
| Website | http://v.baidu.com/ |
| Launched | January 1, 2000 |
| Founder | Robin Li, Eric Xu |
| Headquarters | Beijing, China |
Possessing the most powerful search engine in China, Baidu always wants to have a website like Youtube, just like Google. Unfortunately, Baidu never gets even close to having one.
Baidu has been invested a lot in content generation whether it is written content or video content, but it seems Baidu never got the talent, or luck, to be successful in the content business even though it’s possessing a powerful search engine.
For now, Baidu does have a video website called Baidu video, but it’s really an unpopular one. Its original purpose is to integrate all video content from different platforms, making Baidu video the ultimate video platform for Chinese users.
However, none of the video platforms is stupid enough to join this kind of agreement to help Baidu become “too big to fall”, which causes Baidu not only to have no way to access those quality original content but also haven’t generated a lot of contents from its own platform.
Regarding the user experience or content quality, Baidu has almost no threat to those successful ones like Bilibili, Youku, Tencent Video, etc.
FAQ: About the Chinese version of YouTube
It’s not illegal watching YouTube in China. It’s just because Youtube is blocked in China, you need to find a way to access YouTube. Using a VPN to unblock YouTube is certainly the best way and it’s legal in China.
TikTok is not available in China but users in China can download a twin app called Douyin, which has totally the same function and is also developed by Bytedancee.
According to the Netflix help center, Netflix is not available in China, Crimea, North Korea, Russia, and Syria. But Netflix is available for streaming in over 190 countries and its library of TV shows and movies varies based on the country and will change from time to time.
