Youku Tudou Launches Tudou Redesign and Differentiation Campaign

Youku and Tudou may have merged financially, but it seems Youku’s management is not planning to merge the two platforms anytime soon. Yesterday, Youku Tudou launched what it is calling the “True Dou” campaign, a 100-day push to improve and differentiate the Tudou platform from Youku. The Tudou.com site has been revamped for the occasion, and now boasts some new features and content.

CEO Victor Koo explained the reason for the differentiation campaign thusly:

The Chinese online video industry has been characterized by fierce competition for the past several years. Now that Youku and Tudou are no longer competing with one another, it’s time to let both sites be themselves. Tudou’s new design and identity position it to appeal to younger, more independent audiences than the more general audience served by Youku.

Tudou's new frontpage look: slicker presentation, much bigger video player.

So what does the new Tudou look like? The design is cleaner, and features a larger video player. It also features a new discussion feature — called “Doupao” — that supposedly makes video more social by making real-time comments pop up while you’re watching a video so you see what other people are saying. I wasn’t able to see this in action on the couple videos I checked, but frankly, I’m not sure what this really adds to the experience, as (like any video website) most of the comments on Tudou are inane and a decent percentage of them are gibberish. But a Pop-up Video approach to web commenting could work with the right commenters; perhaps Tudou users will take to the new system.

Tudou will also be featuring new content, including Animation and Entertainment channels with Tudou-only programs as well as a Tudou Originals channel that will feature Tudou original programming. Youku has had quite a bit of success with its own Youku Originals programs, and is presumably looking to repeat that with Tudou. The channel will launch with the show Yif Magic (an entertainment program) and soon after add Tudou Surfin’ and Tudou Groovin’ (newsmagazine-style pop culture news shows)

Not everything about Youku and Tudou has stayed separate since the merger, though. Searches on Tudou are now being run through Youku’s Soku video search platform, albeit with an orange-colored Soku logo to match the Tudou color scheme.

Full disclosure: For a brief period of time in the past, I worked for Youku. Now I don’t, and I have no interests in the company (or any of its competitors, or any other Chinese tech company at all.)