David Li, CEO of YY.com, Talks Gaming and Communities [Live Blog]

This is a part of our TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 Beijing event coverage.

David Li – aka Li Xue-ling – is now sitting down for a ‘founder stories’ chat with TechCrunch’s John Biggs. David Li is the founder and CEO of YY.com and Duowan, the downloads and games portal that’s looking to IPO next year.

#16:41: John: YY has 220 million users. How did you get there. Mr Li says “We have a lot of grassroots users. We have a strong gaming base, and the cooperation between gamers, with voice communication is crucial. It all goes together. And we’re the only service doing this for gamers.”

#16:43: Li: “Also many business users find YY is very handy for working and conferences. This year we didn’t invest in any advertising, so that’s very lucky for us. We can focus on products, an develop those, and concentrate on feedback from users. That’s important as this is a community network.”

#16:45: As an interesting aside, YY’s group chat played a big role in the recent Tmall.com feud with users, where it was used by the attackers to organise their efforts; but then the peace deal was brokered online with YY as well.

#16:48: David explains that communities are fragile, but that YY cannot be killed of by bigger competitors. That’s quite brave considering the chat services are up against Tencent, and his portals are up against the likes of Baidu and Netease.

#16:55: David: “An online conference can be more efficient than an offline one.”

#16:56: Now talking about a founder’s ambitions and aims… David says: “A company must have its own ideal dream that differentiates it from all others. We started with games and gaming, and so ours grow where others didn’t. We were also the first to provide an open gaming platform, which was a dream of mine.”

#16:58: David: “We’ve changed our dreams and aims sometimes […] but we still keep a vision.”

#17:01: And that’s a wrap. Focusing more on origins and a founder’s motivations – not actually what YY.com is heading towards, or its planned IPO – it was nonetheless a good insight into the massive games, music, and downloads site.