14 DAY TRIAL // It's well known the fact that Google loves China and tries anything it can to expand its offering into this exciting wealthy land. But there is a problem: China doesn't love Google and there is no way to see the Mountain View company conquering the Asian market as long as there is no entrance into it. Another proof that Google must avoid China appeared today when the local online video sharing service Tudou announced that it plans to make $19 million investments into the video platform, aiming to become a real Chinese YouTube.
Usually, I say this is impossible because YouTube is the best online video sharing on the Internet and it is extremely difficult to steal its users. But this is something else. This is China, the country that sees Google as an ordinary company with nothing special to get from. That's why this new video platform might really compete with YouTube for the leader position.
"We thought there was an interesting play to do something in this region, and we took a look around and found the leader," said General Catalyst principal Bill Kung for Red Herring. According to the same source, the Chinese video sharing service aims to attract approximately 80 million local users because the under 30 country's residents are very interested by the video sharing offerings.
However, this is not the first time when YouTube gets tough competition because a lot of companies announced their plans to compete with Google's video service but they remained only anonymous products. Take the example of Sony's eyeVio, a YouTube-like solution that was announced as a competitor able to fight with Google in every country, for every visitor. At this time, it is available only to Japanese users and there is no sign that it will compete with YouTube at a global level.