article - The man behind the Chinese equivalent of YouTube
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-himi-koo14-2010feb14,0,2801847.story
quoting part of the article -
The gig: Koo, 43, founder and chief executive of Youku.com, the leading video website in China. He's based in Beijing.
Number of unique visitors a month: 200 million.
How to pronounce Youku: Yo-koo.
Video sensation you may know: The Houston Rockets-jersey-wearing, lip-syncing duo the Back Dorm Boys first hit it big on Youku before going viral elsewhere, including YouTube.
But please don't call it YouTube: Less than a third of Youku's content is user-generated, setting it apart from the U.S. video-sharing mega-site. The U.S. has long had programs such as "America's Funniest Home Videos." But "in China, user-generated video has chiefly been around for only five years," he said. That's why Koo is more focused on providing licensed, original content from various stations in China's fragmented television industry. Koo wanted them to converge on his website. "The Chinese media environment is almost upside down compared to the United States," he said. "In the U.S., there's like six or seven media conglomerates. In China, every city has its own TV and newspaper."
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sample of a youku video, slow on my computer (stop/start), but I still like it -
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTMzODk2MjA0.html