Thomas Friedman on Chinese Podcasting & Vlogging
In today's NYT (subscription required), Thomas Friedman has profiled Shanghai-based Toodou.com, apparently a "hot" Web 2.0 site well known the Chinese blogosphere for its clean user interface, that allows any Chinese users to "create his or her own channel of video or audio content."
According to the report, there are now 13,000 channels on Toodou, of which, 5,000 of them are updated regularly.
I thought this bit in the report is telling in terms of how open-source software has enabled a level-playing field for Chinese innovators in the internet business and a chance to leapfrog the technology gap.
Of course, Toodou is not the only website that is in the user-generated audio and video field. There are others in China that are trying to tap into the emerging trend of podcasting and video logging. It's just that the world doens't know too much about them yet.
Update: Peking Duck has the entire article on his site.
According to the report, there are now 13,000 channels on Toodou, of which, 5,000 of them are updated regularly.
I thought this bit in the report is telling in terms of how open-source software has enabled a level-playing field for Chinese innovators in the internet business and a chance to leapfrog the technology gap.
"News of his site was spread free by Chinese bloggers. His office costs $500 a month, and some of the employees also sleep there. Almost all of the software that runs Toodou.com is from free, open-source material on the Web: an Apache Web server; FreeBSD, a free Unix operating system; MySQL, a free database system; and PHP, free programming lingo. Mr. Wang wrote the basic algorithms that run Toodou.com himself.
Unlike earlier techno-media revolutions, which began in the West and moved East, the podcasting revolution is going to explode everywhere at once, thanks to the Web and free technology tools. That's why the next phase of globalization is not going to be more Americanization, but more "glocalization" - more and more local content made global."
Of course, Toodou is not the only website that is in the user-generated audio and video field. There are others in China that are trying to tap into the emerging trend of podcasting and video logging. It's just that the world doens't know too much about them yet.
Update: Peking Duck has the entire article on his site.
