UUSee - How Can 30 Million Chinese Broadband Users Be Wrong?

Tuesday, January 30th, 2007

If Baidu is the Google of China, then Sequoia Capital-backed UUSee is its YouTube and Venice Project combined, only more so
Partners Include ESPN, SMG, CCTV, CSAT, World Cup Soccer
Gunpowder, Paper, Printing, The Compass … P2P Video Distribution?!

BEIJING — Though the boom in online video distribution has most closely been associated with the U.S. and the English- speaking market with sites like YouTube, BitTorrent and Joost making waves, media and technology players would be well-served to look to UUSee, China’s largest web TV operator and P2P video network-for a very real glimpse into online video’s future. Backed by Sequoia Capital, UUSee ranks within Alexa’s global top 200 with more than 30,000,000 installed users, including more than three million who have downloaded UUSee’s mobile software.

“China — and UUSee in particular — has taken the worldwide lead in P2P- based Internet TV services,” said Li Zhu, CEO and co-founder, who until now has never spoken with Western media to discuss UUSee’s technology and business model. “UUSee has been delivering P2P video for close to two years, with its content Chinese people worldwide rely on UUSee to stay connected to relevant broadcast news, sports and culture that once could only be viewed on televisions in China. Also, UUSee’s technology is not limited to Chinese language programming, and so we look forward to forging relationships with communities and companies globally.”

UUSee is the Internet broadcasting partner of both China’s largest TV broadcaster, CCTV, as well as China’s monopoly satellite operator, CSAT. Through CSAT, UUSee offers video to China’s hundreds of thousands of Internet cafes, from where many mainland Chinese people access the Internet. UUSee has also galvanized licensing and revenue-sharing deals with top media groups such as SMG and ESPN to offer Internet TV broadcasting services within China for World Cup Soccer Games, European Champions League games and the Asian Games.

UUSee broadcasts this content through more than 60 TV channels in real time, 350 customizable channels, video on demand, time-shifting, social features such as tagging and voting, mobile downloads available in all file formats — with both proprietary and third party DRM control. Brands advertise on UUSee in multiple ways, from pre- and post-roll, banner and text, to more innovative manners such as picture-in-picture and interactive Flash.

For the second year in a row, UUSee is pleased to be broadcasting the “Spring Festival for Worldwide Chinese” along with CCTV.com. The Spring Festival, a.k.a. Chinese New Year, is a traditional festival that is held in high regard by Chinese people worldwide, and UUSee.com will offer billions of Chinese netizens throughout the world the opportunity to share in the celebration. Nielsen NetRating tracked UUSee’s broadcast of the Spring Festival last year, revealing that the number of visitors from outside mainland China accounted for 10% of the total online viewers.