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Ppstream Won't Consider Merging with PPLive
SHENZHEN, Nov 20, 2009 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) --
In reply to rumors that Ppstream.com, an online video-sharing website in China, may merge with its peer PPLive.com, Ppstream president Xu Weifeng says they will not consider entering partnership with a vertical video-sharing website because that will only lead to homogenized content, adding that if Ppstream seeks for marriage, the best partner must be a big media group or a company that can better complement it, and Ifeng.com is the one.
Ppstream is the first Chinese online video-sharing website to have offered a pay service. Now it is deriving about 30% of its sales form user charges, with the reminder coming from advertising income.
Responding to criticism on Ppstream's pay service, the president says they will take a cautious stance toward the pay service and push it forward slowly.
The president believes firmly that only three video-sharing websites will end up weathering through the fierce competition.
The quality of Chinese video websites is mixed. They say they all have a unique business model, but only those that can provide Internet users with the most quality and broad-based video clips, TV programs, and movies will be the winners, points out Mr. Wu.
Clicks per user on Ppstrea.com stand on four to five. Each day it records as many as 100 million views. Each user spends 6,000 seconds on the website daily on average, Mr. Wu discloses.
Enhancing user loyalty is tricky. Ppstream has done a lot to keep video watchers from leaving the website by adding more soap operas and animated films to its content base.
At the moment, Ppstream is shy of short video clips save for news programs. It has been focusing on high-quality, high-definition, proprietary TV plays and movies. Now the website is brewing a change in its strategy.
When speaking of the high costs of proprietary content and the copyright disputes, Mr. Wu notes it is a problem no one can avoid. "We have never been accused of copyright infringement. Though the competition is throat-cutting, I think all video-sharing websites should work together to battle pirates."
Prices for legitimate content have skyrocketed. And the Chinese government permits just a few dozen foreign films annually in Chinese cinemas, an invitation to piracy.
Unless China opens the door to foreign content, people will always find illegal ways to get it. That means copyright holders have a long road ahead. Lawsuits by foreign record companies against Chinese search engines for allegedly providing easy access to pirated songs have languished for more than a year, it's just taking forever.
(USD 1 = CNY 6.83)
Source: www.hexun.com (November 20, 2009)
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