This article is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view. For blatant advertising that would require a fundamental rewrite to become encyclopedic, use {{db-spam}} to mark for speedy deletion. (September 2010) Tudou, Inc. Type Private VC-Funded Founded February 15, 2005 (2005-02-15) Headquarters Shanghai, People's Republic of China Key people Gary Wang, CEO Sam Lai, CFO Grace Wang, CAO Sarah Jiang, CCO Evelyn Wang, CSO Deng Wei, VP Anita Huang, VP Yongzhu Song, VP Yu Bin, VP Slogan "Today's TV Network, Tomorrow's Tudou" 每个人都是生活的导演 Website tudou.com Alexa rank 50 Type of site Video hosting service Registration Optional (required to upload) Available in Simplified Chinese Launched February 15, 2005 Current status Active Screenshot Screenshot of Tudou home page Tudou, Inc. (simplified Chinese: 土豆网; traditional Chinese: 土豆網; pinyin: Tǔdòu Wǎng; literally "Potato Net") is one of the largest video websites in People's Republic of China, where users can upload, view and share video clips. Tudou went live on April 15, 2005 and by September 2007, served over 55 million videos each day.1 Tudou states they are one of the world's largest bandwidth users, moving more than 1 Petabyte per day to 7 million users. YouTube does serve a larger number of videos per day, but since the average Tudou video is longer in duration, the total amount of minutes of video being streamed daily from Tudou is significantly larger - about 15 billion minutes vs. 3 billion for YouTube.1

Though focusing on the China audience, Tudou is becoming popular with users in the world because it allows the viewer to watch a wide variety of video contents ranging from licensed episodes of television shows and movies, adding to short 10 minute clips as with YouTube. The Shanghai-based service uses Adobe Flash technology to publish more than 50,000 new videos each day, including amateur content such as videoblogging and original videos, movie and TV clips, and music videos. Unregistered users can watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos, using on-line and Windows-based upload tools.2 Contents 1 History 1.1 Rapid Growth 2 Media Recognition 3 Funding 4 Recent events 5 Copyright & Video Review 5.1 Copyright 5.2 Video Review 6 Technical notes 6.1 Video format 6.2 Bandwidth 7 See also 8 References 9 External links History Tudou was founded by Gary Wang and Dutchman Marc van der Chijs, whom Wang met while at Bertelsmann Media Group in China. The name Tudou is Chinese Pinyin (Romanized Chinese) for Potato. It was previously known as Toodou.com, and changed its domain name to Tudou.com in August 2006 when that domain became available. According to CEO Wang, the name comes from the English idiom "couch potato." He stated that his goal was to move couch potatoes from the television screen to the computer screen.3

Prior to Tudou, Wang lived in the United States and returned to China to work for multi-national companies. Tudou was originally conceptualized as a video blogging company and the site launched on April 15, 2005, in its current format, several months before YouTube. Like many technology startups, Tudou was started on a shoestring with a raw technology team, practically in a garage. It was initially self-financed at about $100,000, then in 2005 raised a $500,000 seed round. Its first major funding round was in 2006 for $8.5 million from IDG China, GGV Capital (formerly Granite Global Ventures), and JAFCO Asia. Tudou's second funding was in early 2007 for $19 million and was led by Boston-based General Catalyst Partners and Shanghai-based Capital Today, with other existing investors participating.1 The fource found funding was on April 28, 2008, for $57 million from existing investors IDG Technology Venture Investment (IDGVC), Granite Global Ventures and General Catalyst Partners, and also included a member of the Rockefeller family.4 The most recent funding was announced on August 5, 2010 for $50 million from the Temasek Holdings and exisiting investors.5 Rapid Growth During the summer of 2007, Nielsen/NetRatings reported that Tudou was one of the fastest growing websites on the Web, growing from 131 to 360 million video clips per week in just three months. According to a July 16, 2007, survey, 55 million video clips are viewed daily on Tudou, with an additional 20,000 new videos uploaded every 24 hours.6 Neilsen's measurements indicate the website averages nearly 40 million visitors per month.7

According to Chinese tracking service iResearch, as of the mid-2007, Tudou has over 50% of the Chinese online video market.8 iResearch reported Tudou's monthly unique visitor reached 95 million as of June, 2009, and 170 million as of June 2010. Media Recognition Tudou has been covered in both the Chinese and Western press, including in the New York Times,9 Business Week,10 South China Morning Post,11 Dow Jones MarketWatch,12 and others. Funding Tudou completed its financial fund series A to E between year 2005 to 2010 in November 2005, April 2006, April 2007, April 2008, and August 2010 respectively. A total of US$135 millions were raised from a roster of venture capital organizations such as IDG Ventures China, Jafco Asia, GGV Capital, General Catalyst Partners, Capital Today, KTB, JAIC, Cyber Agent, Venrock, Crescent Point, and Temasek Holdings. Recent events In July 2007, Tudou introduced one of the world's first large-scale video advertising systems for video sites, several months ahead of YouTube.8 In late September 2007, Intel and Tudou announced a partnership to explore wireless video sharing technologies and video applications for mobile devices. Tudou also agreed to increase its use of Intel CPUs in its rapidly growing video encoder server farms. Intel will also promote its products through the Tudou advertising system.13 In December 2007, Tudou introduced videos in the H.264 format, providing higher quality and standards-based video.14

In the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake on May 12, the service of the website was suspended until May 21 due to the period of national mourning. On September 10, 2008, Tudou received its license15 from SARFT. Copyright & Video Review Copyright A portion of Tudou's content comes from commercial sources and is not user-generated. The company says that the Chinese often go to Tudou for TV-like saq-media, instead of using their televisions. Starting 2008 Tudou launched licensed content acquisition and partnership programs aggregating selective premium professional contents. Nevertheless, Tudou still comes under criticism for its disregard of some copyright policies. Tudou follows copyright practices in coordance with the DMCA Digital Millennium Copyright Act as Youtube. Video Review Tudou's in-house reviewers watch, approve, and categorize all uploaded videos. The reviewers screen for inappropriate content such as pornography and categorize / tag each video.16 Technical notes Video format Tudou's video playback technology is based on Macromedia's Flash Player. This technology allows the site to display videos with quality comparable to more established video playback technologies (such as Windows Media Player, QuickTime and RealPlayer) that generally require the user to download and install a web browser plugin in order to view video. Flash also requires a plug-in, but the Flash 7 plug-in is generally considered to be present on approximately 90% of online computers.17 The video can also be played back with gnash(cannot) or VLC. It has pixel dimensions of 320 by 240 (4:3) or 352 by 264 (16:9), depending on the aspect ratio of the source video. Videos run at 25 frames per second with a maximum data rate of 300kbit/s.

Tudou accepts uploaded videos in a variety of formats, including .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, MPEG and .MP4.2 Video can be seen in windowed mode or full screen mode; it is possible to switch the mode during the viewing of any video without reloading it because of the full-screen function of Adobe Systems Flash Player 9. Bandwidth Tudou reports that it's one of the world's largest bandwidth users, sending over 1PB (Petabyte) of video files per day, which is nearly 100Gbit/s of sustained traffic. The company uses a variety of proprietary and commercial content distribution networks (CDNs), such as ChinaCache to distribute videos around China.18 The domain tudou.com attracted almost 10 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com survey.19 See also China portal Companies portal Internet portal 56.com Alternative media Comparison of video services List of Internet phenomena User-generated content Viral video Youku References ^ a b c " Tudou now bigger than Youtube?" Shanghaiist, October 11, 2007. ^ a b "Tudou Website" ^ Tudou.com Uploaders to Share Ad Revenue, "Sina News" July 4, 2007. ^ Chinese Video Site Tudou Receives Another Big Round of $57 Million ^ Tudou raises $50M more for mobile video explosion ^ "Targeting China’s Younger Generation" CScout April 24, 2007 ^ "From 131 Million to 360 Million - Tudou.com Triples Weekly Clip View in just Three Months". Nielsen NetRatings Press ReleaseJuly 8, 2007 ^ a b "Original Video Content Site Tudou.com Launches Video Advertising Platform" American Venture Magazine. July 16, 2007. ^ "China Finds its Voice". New York Times October 21, 2005. ^ "Calling Chinese Couch Potatoes" Business Week. January 23, 2006. ^ "Tudou Tops China's Video Sharing Market"., South China Morning Post October 17, 2006. ^ "Web 2.0 in China: Buy or build?" Dow Jones Market Watch. December 03, 2006. ^ "Intel Sets Out to Work with Tudou to Further Video Tech" XinHua News. September 21, 2007. ^ "Tudou Site h.264 Announcement" Tudou Site. December 2007. ^ "Marc van der Chijs' Shanghaied Weblog: Tudou gets SARFT license". Marc.cn. September 10, 2008. http://www.marc.cn/2008/09/tudou-gets-sarft-license.html. Retrieved 2008-11-29.  ^ "Testing China's Web Tolerance" Business Week. January 23, 2006. ^ "Adobe Flash Player Version Penetration" "Adobe Website" ^ "A Big Funding Round For Chinese Web 2.0 Arms Dealer ChinaCache" "BillsDue" April 26, 2007 ^ Siteanalytics.compete.com External links Official website (Mobile) (Chinese) About Tudou (English) v · d · eOnline distribution platforms Books Amazon Kindle · Barnes & Noble Nook · PocketBook Reader · Sony Reader · iBooks · List of digital library projects · FanFiction.Net · FictionPress Documents Google Docs · Docstoc · Scribd · pastebins (Pastebay) · Blogger · Bloglines · TypePad · WordPress.com · LiveJournal · Docs.com Music Online music store · 7digital · Amazon MP3 · Amie Street · Bandit.fm · Beatport · BigPond Music · BuyMusic · CD Baby · Ditto music · Djshop · eMusic · GoMusic · Grooveshark · Guvera · imeem · iMesh · iTunes Store · Jamendo · Juno Records · Kazaa · Last.fm · Magnatune · MusicStation · Napster · Nimbit · Pandora · PlayNow · Puretracks · Qriocity · Rhapsody · RouteNote · Sellaband · Spotify · Songza · SoundCloud · Streamwaves · Ubetoo · Vodafone Music · we7 · Walmart Music · Zune Marketplace Video 56.com · Amazon Video on Demand · AOL Video · BBC iPlayer · BigPond Movies · blip.tv · Break.com · Brightcove · Crackle · Dailymotion · Fearnet · Hulu · iTunes Store · Joost · megavideo · Metacafe · MUZU TV · Netflix · The NewsMarket · PlayNow · PlayStation Store · Qriocity · RTÉ player · RuTube · ThePlatform · Tudou · TVCatchup · V Cast · Veoh · Vimeo · Voddler · Youku · YouTube · Zattoo · Zune Marketplace Games and software Windows AppUp · BigPond GamesArena · Direct2Drive · DotEmu · EA Store · Gaikai  · GamersGate · GameAgent · GameShadow · GameTap · GFW Marketplace · Good Old Games · Impulse · Jumboplay · Metaboli · Microsoft Store · OnLive · RealArcade · Steam · Triton · WildTangent · Windows Marketplace · Zylom Mac OS Gametreeonline.com · GameAgent · GamersGate · Mac App Store · Mac Games Arcade · OnLive · Steam Other platforms Gaikai · Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection  · OnLive · PlayStation Store · Wii Shop Channel · Xbox Live Marketplace · ZeeboNet 3G Mobile Android Market · App Catalog · App Store · AppUp · App World · Cydia · DSi Shop · Get It Now · GetJar · Handango · N-Gage · Ovi Store · PlayNow · PlayStation Store for PSP · Samsung Apps · Windows Marketplace for Mobile · Windows Phone Marketplace · Amazon Appstore · Opera Mobile Store Browser Bing Entertainment · Kongregate · Chrome Web Store  · MSN Games · Pogo.com · WildTangent · Yahoo! Games · Zylom Related BitTorrent · Shareware  · Abandonware  · Freeware