I guess you can just file this one under interesting, unless you are actively marketing in China…
A had to do a double take when I first read the MediaPost headline last week – “China’s Youku Approaches YouTube Territory, Surpasses 100 Million Daily Mark“. In one year the site went from zero to 12 million users – indeed reminiscent of YouTube. I’m quite aware of the internet growth in China, but this number represented a real landmark to me.
It was less than 10 years ago, when I was invited by Doubleclick’s CEO to co-present the state of online advertising affairs to a delegation from China consisting of leaders of academia and government. The Chinese government was censoring US based internet content at the time, and still to a degree flexes censorship power over the type of content its citizens can be exposed to. With Youku’s scale, one must assume that the government’s biggest microscope is focused in their direction, or directly involved, which wouldn’t be surprising considering the fact that in many countries the government runs the largest national media companies.
I’ve been presenting digital marketing seminars to the diving and adventure travel industries since 2001. I’ve presented seminars in Singapore and Bangkok, and I’ve recently been scheduled to present a seminar in Shanghai in 2009, to assist in bringing the fast growing, but still nascent Chinese market up to speed.
I’ve created a new category for “China” for the blog, so periodically I’ll post updates from this fascinating market.
