Entrepreneur Hopes Sharing Videos From Smartphones is Next Big Thing

The former CTO of video-streaming sites Tudou (NASDAQ:TUDO) and Ku6 has reinvented himself as an entrepreneur, and now has his first app available for download. It’s a video-recording and sharing app for Android and iPhone called iSheHui.

After the huge success of Instagram and other Chinese-made photo-sharing apps – such as TuDing, which now has four million users – Zhao Liang (pictured below) is banking on video-sharing from mobiles being the next big thing.

The iSheHui app is, of course, socially engaged, allowing users to share videos to services such as Sina (NASDAQ:SINA) Weibo, Tencent (HKG:0700) Weibo, and Renren (NYSE:RENN). It claims to have very clever encoding so that video files are shrunk down to one-tenth of their actual size when uploaded whilst keeping pretty clear. That’ll be important in a country where only about 10 to 12 percent of people have 3G, and most of those are on rather limited monthly data plans.

Naturally, it has filters, so that videos can be made to look romantic or old-timey, futuristic or grungy, before uploading and sharing. And as with most lightweight social networks like this, you can follow fellow users, comment on their videos, and browse recent vids in a timeline.

Chinese tech site DoNews reports that Zhao Liang has received VC investment for iSheHui to the tune of at least 10 million RMB, though that hasn’t been made official.

Although not quite the same, Youku’s (NYSE:YOKU) recent smartphone app update also permits video uploads, showing the China’s mobile users are now ready to make and share videos on the move.

The iSheHui homepage has direct downloads of the iPhone app, because it hasn’t yet been listed in the app store, meaning that you’d need to be on a jailbroken device to install this right now. The Android app is on there as well.