Victor Koo renames Youku parent firm Heyi Group. (Photo : Reuters)
In 2012, popular video-sharing website Youku.com merged with rival Tudou.com. Three years later, the firm's founder, 49-year-old Victor Koo, revealed yet another change, which marks the start of his shaking up of the online entertainment industry.
In a recent Beijing meeting, Koo announced that he is renaming the company, bringing back its old moniker--Heyi Group--literally, "combination with one."
Koo also shared that "the time of one-directional online videos will come to an end."
With his website having around 10 million users who uploaded their videos last year, Koo said that now, "the entertainment industry will step into a new era centered on 'personal channels.'"
The Youku founder said that the group eyes to invest over 10 billion yuan to develop its content initially created online for the next three years.
This kind of content is able to attract around 10 billion clicks per month, and with such trend, Koo predicted that the "value of sales of copyrighted material will fade in the online video industry."
Nonetheless, Koo noted that the firm does not plan to stop streaming TV programs and film titles.
"You can pay a lot of money to buy the rights of popular TV shows to increase website traffic, but those watchers are not loyal to the website," he furthered.
Koo cited that the decrease of admittance threshold for videos made by ordinary citizens has fueled the popularity of such content.
Heyi Group's chief products officer Gu Sibin forecasts that the number of this kind of video material will increase, noting that their company has about 10 personalized channels.
