Steve Chen, the co-founder of YouTube, attended an internet forum in Taipei, Taiwan last week. There he announced that a Chinese language YouTube was on the cards.
Chen was born in Taiwan in 1978 and emigrated at the age of 8. This was his first public speech in the country.
Given that a large percentage of YouTube’s users come from non-native English speaking nations and that China has a huge internet population, it makes perfect sense to open a Chinese language YouTube.
Censorship Issues
When the Google search engine went into China it had to obey certain censorship rules set out by the Chinese government. Although Google first tried to fight these censorship rules it later agreed to them in order to do business within the country.
YouTube, which was bought by Google last year, has already seen plenty of censorship issues popping up in many countries, such as the recent issue with Thailand.
It is almost certain that YouTube will be censored and that the Chinese government will require a Chinese YouTube to be heavily monitored for “offending” clips.
Other Chinese Video Sharing Sites Struggling
With a Chinese YouTube on the horizon other video sharing sites in China, such as Tudou.com, Yoqoo and Rox.com.cn, will be very worried about their future.
Video sharing in China has yet to take off as it has done in the U.S. and other countries. Chinese video sharing sites have commanded comparatively little traffic and are struggling to find profitable monetization models.
A Chinese YouTube could sqeeze them out of the picture.
