Virtual China

Another excellent Pacific Epoch interview, this one with Buddy Ye, the co-founder and CEO of Wangyou Media, a company that provides a platform for users to share audio, video, and photo content, with mobile services as well. They call themselves a cross between Myspace and Youtube, and you can see elements of both in the interface. The kicker is that the company also turns that content into mainstream media content by creating a weekly radio show, monthly CDs, and possibly a TV show in the future.  So users get to hear themselves on the radio and buy their own CDs.  Reminds me of blurb.com, which takes personal digital content and turns it into old-fashioned hard-cover books. 

And check this out: you get "points" for including ads in your content (3-5 second spots), with which you can claim prizes.  You can also get points for reporting "inappropriate content," if it manages to get past management. 

Wangyou claims over 3 million users.

What’s missing? At first glance, at least a good system for rating and sorting the content, beyond "new" and "hot". 

link to interview
link to Wangyou site
link to Wangyou videocasts–you may have to register to view them.  I’ll be exploring.