A self-described “mix of American and Chinese with a tinge of European”, the CEO and co-founder of online video-sharing site Tudou spent his childhood in Fujian Province, adolescence in New York and went to business school in France.
But after a turbulent year for Tudou - which began 2008 as one of the biggest online video players, but had to fight for its life when it found itself on the wrong side of the regulators - Wang appears more eager to fit in.
The colourful 35-five-year-old, who speaks Mandarin and English fluently and is “able to communicate” in French and Spanish, holds a master’s degree in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Insead. His time in France also gave him a passion for adventure sports - he has taken time off to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and cycle from Lhasa in Tibet to Kathmandu, giving him a reputation as something of a playboy.
It is this all-action, international-facing persona that, say some in China’s digital industry, has contributed to Tudou’s problems. Compared with rival Youku - Beijing-based, with links to established internet players and good relations with the regulators - Shanghai-based Tudou seems the rebellious upstart. It is an image that owes much to its founder.
Nevertheless, Wang’s expertise should not be doubted. Before business school, he worked at US firm Hughes Electronics where he helped set up satellite broadband in Asia. After his time in France, he became a director of BOL China, part of the German media corporation Bertelsmann. It was there that Wang saw how global managers chose TV shows for Chinese audiences. “I thought it was very difficult for a foreign media company to make anything happen inside the Chinese TV market. I hoped I could find a way to bring content directly to audiences instead of having it preset before entering China,” he says.
The result was Tudou, founded with Dutch business partner Marc van der Chijs. They set out to create a platform where audiences could upload content to share with other users, and began peddling the idea to investors in Asia and in Europe. From its launch in April 2005 through to 2007, Tudou saw rapid growth, claiming 15 billion minutes of video available, making it larger than YouTube. The magic formula of ‘YouTube plus China’ certainly worked for investors, with the site receiving more than US$85 million of funding to date.
But Tudou’s positioning as a democratic digital video platform - as opposed to Youku, which aims to be a news video channel - ruffled feathers. The site fell foul of Chinese regulators following a highly publicised clampdown on video-sharing sites to eradicate pornographic and politically sensitive material from the net. While Wang says his site never sought to draw videos containing contraband content, Tudou was among the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television’s (Sarft) targets and was punished after Tudou was found to air prohibited material. Tudou was closed for 24 hours in May 2008 - though Wang insists this was not due to a shutdown warrant issued by Sarft. It was later delayed a coveted broadcast licence necessary for operation in China until two months after other sites received theirs. As a result of the controversy, it also reportedly missed out on a deal with CCTV to broadcast Olympics footage.
“2008 was just a dramatic year for the company, and it was for the country as well,” Wang reminisces. “That whole process helped Tudou become a more mature company to operate in China, and now we understand the regulatory space much better and the team has overall become stronger for the future.”
In 2009, the company has two key goals: generating advertising revenue, “to show how online advertising is just as affective as TV advertising”, and transforming “this very chaotic copyright environment to an orderly system that will be a safe harbour for content providers to work with.”
Copyright material appears to be a major push - rather than rely on YouTube-style user videos, Tudou wants to build itself into an online TV player, securing rights deals with TV stations. To that end, it launched an HD service last September. “Content is key to our users because why would they come to Tudou otherwise? It’s to look at videos, and content partners will be able to provide more interesting content. We want to generate uploads and someday finance made-for-Tudou shows that Chinese white-collar workers will discuss over water coolers.”
With this in mind, Wang hopes that Tudou will be among the first video-sharing sites to become profitable. While he admits he isn’t entirely sure how this will be achieved, Wang knows how it won’t be: through banner ads and shotgun mergers.
“There are a few things we know. Banner ads or text ads are not our cup of tea. We’ll be focused on media content and rich-media advertising like pre-roll and post-roll that have high impact and that are very different from what other portals offer,” he says, further discounting rumours of merger plans with other video-sharing sites until there is a clear model to making these sites profitable.
And while Wang is a man of the world, he insists that Tudou will be a distinctly Chinese player for the foreseeable future. “I think we’d rather stay inside China because we’re a Chinese site,” he said. “I’ve looked at the problems of the past and solved them, and 2008 was a year of problems but they were all solvable problems. We have a future in China and now we have a broadcast licence and the confidence to convince brand advertisers to keep up business.”
Gary Wang’s CV
2005 Founder/CEO, Tudou.com, Shanghai
2002 Corporate development director, Bertelsmann Group; managing director, BOL China, Shanghai
1997 Business development manager and product specialist, Hughes Electronics
But after a turbulent year for Tudou - which began 2008 as one of the biggest online video players, but had to fight for its life when it found itself on the wrong side of the regulators - Wang appears more eager to fit in.
The colourful 35-five-year-old, who speaks Mandarin and English fluently and is “able to communicate” in French and Spanish, holds a master’s degree in computer science from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Insead. His time in France also gave him a passion for adventure sports - he has taken time off to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and cycle from Lhasa in Tibet to Kathmandu, giving him a reputation as something of a playboy.
It is this all-action, international-facing persona that, say some in China’s digital industry, has contributed to Tudou’s problems. Compared with rival Youku - Beijing-based, with links to established internet players and good relations with the regulators - Shanghai-based Tudou seems the rebellious upstart. It is an image that owes much to its founder.
Nevertheless, Wang’s expertise should not be doubted. Before business school, he worked at US firm Hughes Electronics where he helped set up satellite broadband in Asia. After his time in France, he became a director of BOL China, part of the German media corporation Bertelsmann. It was there that Wang saw how global managers chose TV shows for Chinese audiences. “I thought it was very difficult for a foreign media company to make anything happen inside the Chinese TV market. I hoped I could find a way to bring content directly to audiences instead of having it preset before entering China,” he says.
The result was Tudou, founded with Dutch business partner Marc van der Chijs. They set out to create a platform where audiences could upload content to share with other users, and began peddling the idea to investors in Asia and in Europe. From its launch in April 2005 through to 2007, Tudou saw rapid growth, claiming 15 billion minutes of video available, making it larger than YouTube. The magic formula of ‘YouTube plus China’ certainly worked for investors, with the site receiving more than US$85 million of funding to date.
But Tudou’s positioning as a democratic digital video platform - as opposed to Youku, which aims to be a news video channel - ruffled feathers. The site fell foul of Chinese regulators following a highly publicised clampdown on video-sharing sites to eradicate pornographic and politically sensitive material from the net. While Wang says his site never sought to draw videos containing contraband content, Tudou was among the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television’s (Sarft) targets and was punished after Tudou was found to air prohibited material. Tudou was closed for 24 hours in May 2008 - though Wang insists this was not due to a shutdown warrant issued by Sarft. It was later delayed a coveted broadcast licence necessary for operation in China until two months after other sites received theirs. As a result of the controversy, it also reportedly missed out on a deal with CCTV to broadcast Olympics footage.
“2008 was just a dramatic year for the company, and it was for the country as well,” Wang reminisces. “That whole process helped Tudou become a more mature company to operate in China, and now we understand the regulatory space much better and the team has overall become stronger for the future.”
In 2009, the company has two key goals: generating advertising revenue, “to show how online advertising is just as affective as TV advertising”, and transforming “this very chaotic copyright environment to an orderly system that will be a safe harbour for content providers to work with.”
Copyright material appears to be a major push - rather than rely on YouTube-style user videos, Tudou wants to build itself into an online TV player, securing rights deals with TV stations. To that end, it launched an HD service last September. “Content is key to our users because why would they come to Tudou otherwise? It’s to look at videos, and content partners will be able to provide more interesting content. We want to generate uploads and someday finance made-for-Tudou shows that Chinese white-collar workers will discuss over water coolers.”
With this in mind, Wang hopes that Tudou will be among the first video-sharing sites to become profitable. While he admits he isn’t entirely sure how this will be achieved, Wang knows how it won’t be: through banner ads and shotgun mergers.
“There are a few things we know. Banner ads or text ads are not our cup of tea. We’ll be focused on media content and rich-media advertising like pre-roll and post-roll that have high impact and that are very different from what other portals offer,” he says, further discounting rumours of merger plans with other video-sharing sites until there is a clear model to making these sites profitable.
And while Wang is a man of the world, he insists that Tudou will be a distinctly Chinese player for the foreseeable future. “I think we’d rather stay inside China because we’re a Chinese site,” he said. “I’ve looked at the problems of the past and solved them, and 2008 was a year of problems but they were all solvable problems. We have a future in China and now we have a broadcast licence and the confidence to convince brand advertisers to keep up business.”
Gary Wang’s CV
2005 Founder/CEO, Tudou.com, Shanghai
2002 Corporate development director, Bertelsmann Group; managing director, BOL China, Shanghai
1997 Business development manager and product specialist, Hughes Electronics
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